LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 
SECOND  SERIES. 


LIBRARY 


Foils  Iflisin 


Withdn 

Class  C0?l, 

SYMIK 


^wn  from  the 


RSIT 


v 


YALE 

LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

BY 

HENRY   WARD   BEECHER. 


DELIVERED   BEFORE   THE   THEOLOGICAL  DEPARTMENT   OF   YALE 

COLLEGE,  NEW  HAVEN,  CONN.,  IN  THE  REGULAR  COURSE 

OF  THE  "  LYMAN  BEECHER  LECTURESHIP 

ON  PREACHING." 


FROM  PHONOGRAPHIC  REPORTS. 
-Secontt  Series. 


NEW  YOEK: 
J.  B.  FORD  AND   COMPANY. 

1873. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873, 

BY  J.   B.   FORD  AND  COMPANY, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS  :  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co., 
CAMBRIDGE. 


STACK 
ANNU 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  PAGE 

I.   CHOOSING  THE  FIELD 1 

The  Foundation  Principle 3 

Parish  or  Mission 4 

Ideas  versus  Folks 4 

Pleas  for  Soft  Places 5 

The  Secret  of  Success 7 

Building  in  a  new  Field 8 

What  is  a  Church? 10 

The  First  Step 11 

The  Preacher's  Personality 11 

Reflex  Influence  and  Education 13 

Elements  of  Power  gained  —  Creativeness  —  Reality  .  14 

Individuality 15 

Work  from  the  Bottom  upward          .         .         .         .  16 

An  Apostolic  Exemplar         .         .         .         .         .         .17 

The  Power  of  Christian  Heroism       .         .         .         .  19 

The  Need  of  To-day 20 

Mission-Work  the  best  Training        ....  21 

Questions  and  Answers 21 

II.   PRAYER 25 

Changed  Position  of  the  Church 26 

Growth  of  other  Professions  in  Learning    ...  26 

The  Spread  of  Letters 2? 

The  Church  one  Force  among  many  ....  29 


CONTENTS. 

The  Function  of  the  Pulpit 31 

The  Minister's  Power 32 

Spiritual  Perspective 33 

Prayer  as  an  Element  of  Preaching  .         .         .         .  35 

What  is  Prayer? 3? 

Teaching  Men  to  pray 38 

The  Elements  of  Prayer       .         .         .         .         .         .  .42 

Making  Prayer  attractive 43 

Liberty  in  Prayer 44 

Exaltation  in  Prayer 45 

Personal  Hahit  and  Public  Duty 47 

Prayer  the  Secret  of  Strength 49 

Questions  and  Answers 50 


III.  THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS  .  53 

The  Democratic  Theory 54 

Power  of  Individual  Experiences        .         .         .         .  55 

The  Voice  of  the  Church 57 

The  Prayer-Meeting  promotes  Fellowship .         .         .  59 
It  discourages  Censorious  Judgment      .         .         .         .60 

It  cherishes  Mutual  Helpfulness        .         .         .         .  61 

It  discovers  Mutual  Needs 62 

It  develops  Power  in  the  Congregation      ...  64 

It  discloses  Gifts  and  Graces 65 

Women  to  take  Part 66 

The  Prayer-Meeting  makes  Truth  Personal    .         .         .69 

It  attracts  Outsiders 71 

The  Effect  on  Spectators 72 

Questions  and  Answers 75 

IV.  THE  PRATER-MEETING:   ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES      .  81 

Hard  Work  for  the  Minister 81 

Difficulty  of  gathering  the  People  .         .         .         .83 

The  Folly  of  Scolding 83 

How  to  start  Prayer-Meetings 84 

Poverty  of  Material 86 

Need  of  wise  Leadership 87 

Stale  Speakers  and  Speeches 87 


CONTENTS.  V 

The  Minister  to  train  himself     .....  90 

Let  every  Meeting  take  its  own  Shape      ...  91 

Feeling  cannot  be  forced     ......  92 

How  Feeling  is  developed        .....  95 

Uselessness  of  mere  Exhortation  .....  95 

Flies  in  the  Ointment     ......  96 

Do  not  he  Fastidious  .......  99 

The  Need  of  Catholicity  ......  100 

Begin  and  end  promptly      ......  102 

Cultivate  the  Social  Element  .....  103 

Small  Rooms  the  Best         ......  104 

Let  there  he  Variety       ......  105 

Importance  of  Singing         ......  105 

Summing  up           .......  106 

Questions  and  Answers       ......  107 

V.  RELATIONS  OF  Music  TO  WOESHIP        ....  114 

The  Minister's  Duty  .......  115 

Music  the  Preacher's  Prime  Minister       .         .        .  116 

Church  Music,  —  the  Organ        .....  117 

Function  of  the  Organ,  —  the  Opening    .        .        .  120 

The  Hymn  Accompaniment         .....  121 

The  closing  Voluntary    ......  123 

Organists  .........  124 

True  Organ  Music          ......  125 

The  Choir          ........  126 

Congregational  Singing  ......  128 

Plymouth  Church      .......  130 

How  to  promote  general  Singing     ....  131 

Fellowship  and  Song  help  each  other   .         ,         .         .133 

The  Choice  of  Hymns     ......  134 

Prayer-Meeting  Music         ......  137 

Questions  and  Answers  ......  139 


VI.  DEVELOPMENT  or  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS         ....  146 

Pastoral  Visiting   .......  146 

Modern  Reasons  for  it         ......  147 

Importance  of  knowing  the  People  .         .         .  149 


vi  CONTENTS. 

Freedom  from  Class  Influences 149 

Gaming  the  Confidence  of  People  .  .  .  .  150 
Two  Special  Conditions  for  Visiting  .  .  .  .151 

Hard  Fields 152 

Heart-Work  instead  of  Head- Work  .  .  .  .154 
General  Social  Amenity  among  Church-Members  .  155 

Imperfect  Kinds 156 

The  True  Practical  Plane 158 

Provision  for  Social  Gatherings 159 

Picnics 160 

The  Church  should  be  a  Household      .         .         .         .161 

The  right  Use  of  Theology 162 

The  Supremacy  of  Spiritual  Qualities  .         .         .         .163 

Sunday-Schools 164 

How  Children  should  be  taught  .  .  .  .165 
Make  Religion  Joyful  to  Children  .  .  .  .  16? 
Questions  and  Answers 170 

VII.   BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK    .         179 

Importance  of  Bible-Classes 181 

Studying  the  Bible  as  a  Whole  .  .  .  .  182 
Various  Methods  of  Bible  Study  .  .  .  .183 

Advantage  of  Personal  Teaching  .  .  .  .  184 
Cause  of  the  Prosperity  of  Plymouth  Church  .  .190 

Mission  Schools 191 

Where  to  establish  Missions 191 

The  School  not  to  become  a  Church         ...          192 

Benefit  to  Teachers 193 

Church  Selfishness 194 

Lay  Preaching 197 

Work  in  one's  own  Field 199 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  .  .  .  .201 
Questions  and  Answers 203 

VIII.  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS 210 

Two  Extremes  of  Opinion 210 

The  Historic  View 211 

The  Revival  Element  in  Judaism     .         .         .         .  211 

Revivals  in  Christ's  Ministry 213 


CONTENTS.  Vii 

Revivals  in  Modern  Time 214 

The  Psychological  Explanation 215 

Accepting  Nature's  Laws 219 

Regular  Institutions  Inadequate 220 

Churches  themselves  need  reviving           .         .         .  221 
Needs  of  those  without  the  Church      .         .         .         .222 

Fanaticism :  how  prevented 222 

Life  better  than  Death 223 

Religious  Excitement  not  Dangerous        .         .         .  225 

High  Feeling  and  Clear  Seeing 228 

Religious  Insanity 228 

Revivals  raise  the  Tone  of  Church  Piety      .         .         .229 

Questions  and  Answers 231 


IX.  REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW 240 

The  Divine  Spirit  not  Capricious     ....  244 

Revivals  under  the  Law  of  Cause  and  Effect          .         .  248 

What  is  Nature  ? 249 

Physical  Nature  not  Ignoble 250 

The  Science  of  Religion 254 

Dependence  on  God  not  given  up 255 

What  is  a  Revival  ? 256 

The  Awakening  of  Conscience 257 

The  Sense  of  Danger 258 

The  Struggle 259 

The  Victory 260 

How  to  produce  these  Results 261 

Questions  and  Answers 264 


X.  THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS 273 

Effect  of  Revivals  within  the  Church       ...  274 

Born  again 275 

Where  to  begin  Revival  Work         .         .         .         .  277 

Preparation  in  the  Preacher 279 

Special  Kind  of  Preaching  required          .         .         .  282 

Frequency  of  Services 283 

Courage  gives  Strength 285 

Do  not  work  by  Authority 288 


viii  CONTENTS. 

Variety  of  Methods 289 

Protracted  Meetings 290 

Inquiry-Meetings 293 

Camp-Meetings 293 

Evangelists 294 

Questions  and  Answers 296 


XI.  BKINGING  MEN  TO  CHRIST 302 

The  Old  and  the  New  Practice         ....  303 

Diverse  Personal  Elements 306 

Degrees  of  Intensity 307 

Practical  Influences  to  be  used 309 

The  Apostolic  Theory 311 

Change  of  Life  the  real  Aim 312 

Differences  of  Disposition 313 

Conviction  only  a  Means  to  Conversion        .         .         .314 

Present  Christ  as  the  Standard        ....  316 

Help  Men  to  actively  choose 316 

Be  Specific,  not  Vague 317 

The  two  Elements  of  Action 318 

The  Ideal  Manhood        .        .        .        .        .        .  321 

Varied  Experiences 322 

After  Conversion  .  326 


LECTUEES  o^r  PKEACHETO. 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD. 

'N  returning,  young  gentlemen,  after  a  year's  ab- 
sence, it  would  hardly  be  possible  that  I  should 
not,  in  some  parts  of  the  several  lectures 
which  I  shall  give,  have  occasion  to  touch 
again  many  of  the  topics  which  came  up  incidentally 
during  the  first  course  of  lectures.  And  yet  it  will  be 
my  effort  to  pass  over  an  entirely  different  field.  And, 
without  rigidly  restricting  myself  to  it,  I  propose  to 
consider  the  auxiliary  influences  which  are  requisite  to 
the  preacher's  life;  those  institutions  and  various  in- 
struments in  the  church  and  out  of  the  church  by 
which  he  will  prepare  himself  as  a  preacher,  or  reap 
and  secure  the  fruit  of  his  preaching. 

I  purpose  in  this  introductory  lecture  to  consider  the 
influence  upon  a  man's  preaching  of  his  primary  choice 
of  a  place.  That  will  involve  more  than  seems  upon 
the  mere  statement. 

I  apprehend  that  when  the  mind  is  called  to  the 
choice  of  a  profession,  it  acts  usually  under  influences 


2  LECTUKES   ON  PREACHING. 

that  are  more  sentimental  —  more,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  that  term,  romantic  —  more  purely  spiritual,  than 
when  it  comes  afterwards  to  act  upon  the  choice  of  a 
place  in  which  to  exercise  the  profession.  A  man 
perhaps  considers  the  various  avenues  of  life,  asks 
himself  into  which  of  them  he  shall  throw  his  life- 
forces.  A  great  variety  of  influences  act  upon  him  ; 
but  if  he  is  in  the  early  stage  of  religious  enthusiasm, 
or  if  he  has  been  bred  in  a  household  where  all  the 
anticipations  of  father  and  mother  have  pointed  in  one 
way,  then,  when  he  determines  to  be  a  minister,  it  is 
oftentimes  the  mere  ratification  of  a  sort  of  vague  and 
general  expectation.  Or,  if  he  be  late  brought  into  the 
kingdom  of  spiritual  realities,  there  is  a  glow  and  an 
enthusiasm  upon  him,  under  which  he  determines  to 
become  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  of  Christ. 

Now,  one  of  the  incidental  evils  that  unfortunately 
attend  a  laborious  preparation  for  the  ministerial  work 
is  the  toning  down  of  that  generous  and  enthusiastic 
religious  feeling  ;  so  that  when  one  has  studied  assidu- 
ously for  two  or  three  years,  though  he  may  know  a 
great  deal  more,  and  in  some  respects  his  Christian 
character  may  have  rounded  out  and  become  more 
symmetrical,  he  is  very  apt  to  have  more  consideration 
of  secular  things.  He  thinks  more  of  things  as  they 
are,  and  gains  or  loses  by  the  process,  according  to  the 
mode  in  which  it  is  carried  out.  For  when  a  man  asks 
himself,  now  near  the  end  of  his  course  of  study, 
"  What  shall  I  do  ?  Where  shall  I  go  ?  Where  shall 
I  settle  ? "  there  begin  to  arise  a  multitude  of  con- 
siderations which  did  not  at  all  affect  his  mind  when 
he  chose  the  profession  of  preaching ;  and  considera- 


CHOOSING   THE   FIELD.  3 

tions,  too,  which,  while  they  are  not  formally  objec- 
tionable, often  do  very  great  mischief. 

THE   FOUNDATION   PRINCIPLE. 

The  presumption,  I  think,  in  every  case,  —  it  will 
have  its  exceptions,  but  ordinarily  the  presumption  in 
the  case  of  every  young  man  about  entering  the  field 
for  preaching  is  that  he  should  go  where  preaching 
is  needed  most,  and  not  where  he  himself  will  be  best 
off.  He  who  follows  the  example  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  most  nearly, — not  in  the  letter  but  in  the  sub- 
stance, in  the  spirit,  —  surely  cannot  be  far  from  right. 
If  there  be  any  example  which  is  ascertained,  it  is 
that  "  He  who  was  rich  for  our  sakes  became  poor,  that 
we  through  his  poverty  might  become  rich."  If  there 
was  any  one  point  that  Paul  emphasized,  it  was  that 
he  would  not  boast  of  what  had  been  done  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  through  other  men's  labors,  —  how  the  gospel 
had  been  preached  around  through  extensive  regions, — 
but  would  glory  in  that  which  he  himself  had  been 
permitted  to  do,  laying  his  own  foundations,  and  not 
building  on  those  of  other  men.  He  gloried  in  going 
where  none  had  been  before  him,  where  the  world  was 
new,  where  the  hardships  were  apparent,  where  other 
men  perhaps  would  shrink  from  bearing  the  burdens 
that  he  had  the  power  and  the  spirit  to  bear.  And  he 
who  goes  where  men  need  him  most,  follows  closely 
the  example  and  the  spirit  of  his  Master.  That  is  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel  of  Christ :  to  take  care  first  of  those 
that  most  need  care,  and  to  do  the  most  for  them  that 
lack  the  most ;  to  care,  not  for  those  that  are  already 
well  helped,  but  for  those  that  are  despised  and  ready 
to  perish. 


4  LECTUKES   ON   PREACHING. 

PARISH   OR  MISSION. 

So  that  the  presumption  is,  if  the  spirit  of  the  Mas- 
ter is  to  be  the  guide,  that  men  should  go  either  into 
fields  at  home  that  are  low  down  and  require  hard 
work,  or  into  the  remoter  regions  that  may  be  called 
mission-fields.  And  the  question  may  be  summed  up 
in  these  two  words  :  Will  you  choose  a  parish,  or  a 
mission  ?  And  when  I  say  "  mission,"  I  do  not  mean 
a  foreign  mission,  necessarily.  Will  you  take  work 
that  is  fresh  to  your  hand,  where  you  will  have  to  be 
creative,  or  will  you  take  that  which  requires  simple 
superintendence  and  already  has  its  course,  which  you 
have  to  supervise  merely,  as  an  engineer  runs  an  en- 
gine already  built  ? 

IDEAS  versus  FOLKS. 

A  great  many  considerations  would  incline  one  to  go 
into  the  mission-field.  But,  after  all,  there  are,  I  think, 
nine  men  who  go  to  parishes  where  there  is  one  that 
goes  to  a  new  and  open  field.  For  when  a  man  has 
finished  his  studies  he  is  full  of  ideas,  —  full  of  new 
ideas.  "  Well,  ought  he  not  to  be  ? "  Yes  ;  but  he 
loves  his  ideas.  "Well,  ought  he  not  to  love  his 
ideas?"  Yes,  but  he  loves  ideas  more  than  he  does 
folks;  —  and  that  is  heresy,  —  flat!  He  has  got  a 
system,  and  he  wants  to  try  it.  He  has  got  some  ser- 
mons, —  he  wants  to  see  how  they  will  fly  !  He  goes 
out  with  the  feeling  of  the  theologian  ;  but  the  feeling 
that  should  send  every  man  into  the  field  to  work,  is 
sympathy  with  man.  That  is  the  whole  of  the  gospel, 
in  a  word.  Divine  purity,  divine  knowledge,  divine 
power,  have  a  compassion  for  imperfect,  sinful,  lost, 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  5 

wretched  men ;  and  he  is  the  true  minister  who  has 
that  compassionate  sympathy,  and  subordinates  every- 
thing else  as  the  instrument  of  it.  But  when  young 
men  first  come  out  of  the  seminary,  they  are  very  apt  to 
be  more  in  sympathy  with  ideas  than  with  people,  and 
so  they  want  to  go  where  their  ideas  will  have  a  free 
course.  "What  could  I* do  with  all  my  sermons,  if  I 
were  to  go  out  into  the  backwoods  where  they  won't  let 
me  read  a  sermon  ?  What  could  I  do  with  all  my 
arguments,  my  statements,  my  nicely  put  questions, 
and  answers,  among  a  people  absolutely  uncultivated  ? " 

PLEAS  FOR   SOFT  PLACES. 

And  next  comes  in  this  thought,  which  is  the 
thought  of  ambition:  "I  have  taken  three  years  to 
prepare  myself  for  college,  and  have  worked  hard;  I 
have  been  four  years  in  college,  —  that  is  seven  ;  and 
three  years  in  the  theological  school, —  that  makes  ten 
years  that  I -have  spent.  I  have  improved  my  time; 
and  now  am  I  going  to  bestow  myself  upon  a  field  that 
is  not  big  enough  to  hold  the  half  of  me  ?  Is  it  duty  ? 
Ought  not  a  man  to  put  himself  in  a  field  where  all 
his  powers  and  all  his  stores  of  knowledge  will  have  an 
opportunity  of  being  developed  ?  And  why  should  he 
tuck  himself  away  in  a  corner  ?  Why  should  he  go 
into  a  field  where  there  will  be  but  one  part  in  ten 
that  he  can  make  any  use  of  ? "  And  so  the  man 
deceives  himself  under  the  plea  of  conscience,  —  that 
he  is  bound  to  bestow  his  goods  in  a  larger  barn  than 
he  would  get  if  he  went  into  a  poor  and  needy  place. 

Then  comes  in  also  very  seductively  the  vanity  of 
friends,  which  so  easily  finds  a  nest  in  our  own  vanity 


6  LECTURES   ON   PREACHING. 

wherein  to  lay  its  eggs.  "  Father  has  been  poor,  and 
he  has  'scrimped'  himself  and  the  whole  family  to 
get  me  through  my  course."  And  the  father  himself 
feels  it.  He  says,  "  I  have  sacrificed  everything  for 
this  boy,  and  he  has  had  a  hard  time.  He  has  lived 
close  to  the  bone ;  now  he  has  got  through.  Every  one 
says  he  is  one  of  the  most  promising  young  men  that  ever 
went  from  this  county ;  he  has  seen  hard  times  enough. 
It  is  time  he  should  have  an  easier  place.  He  has  felt 
so  much  of  poverty,  he  would  better  go  up  to  such  or 
such  a  church,  where  he  can  have  a  good  salary."  They 
want  to  take  a  turn  and  find  a  larger  place,  where  the 
boy  can  do  good  and  enjoy  himself.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  father  be  rich,  he  says,  "  But  my  son  has 
been  brought  up  as  a  gentleman's  son,  and  he  is  not 
used  to  these  things ;  it  is  becoming  that  he  should 
have  a  place  in  accordance  with  his  social  surround- 
ings." Whether  he  is  rich  or  whether  he  is  poor,  each 
one  wants  to  get  a  good  parish. 

Then  again  comes  in  with  still  greater  force  the 
thought,  "  I  have  been  more  blest,  probably,  than  any 
man  ever  was  in  the  world,  in  that  she  has  consented ;  I 
have  now  the  prospect  of  possessing  the  fairest,  dearest 
woman  that  ever  was  created,  and  I  don't  propose  to 
take  her  into  one  of  these  rugged  fields :  a  man  ought 
to  have  some  foresight ;  I  mean  to  go  into  a  place 
where  I  can  support  her."  And  so  Love  pleads  for  a 
home  parish  with  a  good  income. 

And  then  —  and  I  think  it  probably  the  best  plea  of 
the  whole  —  the  young  man  says,  "  I  have,  in  spite  of 
economy  and  suffering,  run  myself  very  deeply  in  debt 
for  my  education,  and  if  I  go  now  into  a  barren  field, 


CHOOSING   THE   FIELD.  7 

how  can  I  pay  my  debt  ? "   To  which  my  reply  would  be : 
Keep  school  till  you  can  pay,  and  then  go  to  preaching. 

THE  SECRET  OF   SUCCESS. 

I  think  that  the  question  of  the  first  field  for  his 
preaching  is  the  transcendent  question  of  a  young  min- 
ister's life.  And  why  ?  Because  I  believe  that  on  that, 
very  largely,  turns  his  disposition ;  and  that  on  his 
moral  disposition  turns  his  success  as  a  preacher.  If 
you  go  into  the  field  with  self-seeking,  and  more  or  less 
under  the  influence  of  vanity  or  ambition,  you  vitiate 
the  power  of  your  preaching  in  its  very  source. 

It  is  not  by  wisdom  or  philosophy,  it  is  not  by  rheto- 
ric, though  these  may  incidentally  contribute  to  a  man's 
success ;  it  is  by  that  secret,  subtle,  invisible,  and  al- 
most incredible  power  which  a  man  derives  from  the 
Holy  Ghost  that  he  succeeds.  And  that  power  works 
in  man  with  what  is  most  generous,  most  disinterested, 
most  sincere,  most  self-sacrificing,  in  him. 

Now,  in  the  determination  of  your  life,  you  turn  the 
rudder  when  you  select  your  field.  If  you  say  to  your- 
self, —  however  much  you  may  veil  it  or  c  ver  it,  —  "I 
will  go  where  much  prosperity  shall  attend  my  life," 
you  make  one  of  those  great,  generic  choices  that  mark 
out  the  future,  and  insidiously,  but  all  your  life  through, 
it  will  be  a  hindrance  to  you  and  a  limitation  of  your 
power. 

If  you  go  into  your  work  with  heroism ;  if  you  sacri- 
fice yourself  for  it,  without  knowing  that  it  is  a  sacri- 
fice, if  you  give  your  soul  and  body  to  the  work  of  God 
among  his  poorest  and  neediest,  so  that  you  are  thrown 
upon  the  necessity  of  living  by  faith, — you  will  find  in 


8  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

it  ample  reward,  you  will  thrive  by  it,  and  rejoice  in  it. 
Thus  you  will  start  your  ministerial  character  upon  a 
plane  out  of  which  will  come  all  the  influences  that  you 
need,  the  mightiest  influences  that  are  known  in  this 
world.  Not  by  might  will  you  become  a  mighty  laborer, 
not  by  power,  not  by  genius,  but  by  that  disposition  in 
you  and  in  your  sermons  that  likens  you  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  —  that  royalty  of  self-sacrifice,  that  glory 
of  pitying  love,  that  intense  and  entire  sympathy  with 
other  men  rather  than  with  yourself,  that  spirit  of  per- 
sonal plasticity  by  which  you  may  wrap  yourself  around 
circumstances,  and  glorify  base  things,  and  seek  out  low 
and  little  things  to  give  them  all  your  power,  and  be  to 
men  what  Christ  is  to  you,  —  wisdom,  sanctification,  jus- 
tification, all ! 

This,  then,  I  say,  is  the  reason  why  the  determination 
which  a  man  makes  in  respect  to  his  sphere  is  likely  to 
have  a  life-long  influence  upon  his  disposition,  and  so 
upon  that  which  is  more  potent  in  the  matter  of  preach- 
ing than  any  other  thing.  For  I  still  insist  that,  how- 
ever needful  and  appropriate  are  intellectual  equipment 
and  all  the  accessories  of  personal  bearing,  culture,  and 
refinement,  the  prime  condition  of  right  preaching  is 
heart  and  soul ;  and  that  to  make  these  right  is  to  keep 
them  in  accord  always  with  the  bounteous,  loving,  all- 
sacrificing,  self-denying  spirit  that  was  manifested  in 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

BUILDING  IN  A  NEW  FIELD. 

What,  then,  if  a  man  acts  under  these  influences  and 
goes  out  into  the  poor  fields ;  into  fields  where,  for  in- 
stance, there  are  no  churches;  or  where,  if  there  are, 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  9 

there  had  better  be  none,  —  that  is,  where  it  would  be 
better  to  dissolve  them  and  crystallize  again.  Let  us 
see  some  of  the  methods  by  which  a  man  should  build 
up  under  such  circumstances,  and  what  would  be  the 
relation  of  this  kind  of  work  to  the  office  of  preaching. 

In  the  first  place,  no  man  can  go  into  a  new  field  and 
not  learn  very  speedily  —  I  know  it  to  be  so  —  how 
helpless  one  is  that  has  been  brought  up  in  the  midst 
of  a  highly  organized  society  and  is  suddenly  drawn 
out  of  it  where  society  is  inchoate;  where  it  is  in  a 
forming  process ;  where  nobody  loves  anybody ;  where 
a  man  has  to  be  pope,  cardinal,  bishop,  parish,  —  every- 
thing in  himself. 

When  a  man  goes  into  a  new  neighborhood,  —  and 
consider,  gentlemen,  consider ;  don't  think  of  Connecti- 
cut while  I  am  talking  to  you,  for,  important  as  the 
State  is,  it  is  not  the  continent !  —  consider  not  even 
the  States  upon  the  Atlantic  slope;  once  they  were 
something,  but  they  have  ceased  to  be,  comparatively 
speaking.  Consider  that  great  three-thousand-miles 
stretch  from  ocean  to  ocean.  Consider  the  great  waves 
of  population  that  are  rolling  in.  Consider  how,  from 
North  to  South,  from  East  to  West,  the  whole  land 
is  now  one  vast  missionary  ground.  Consider  what  a 
host  of  African  people  there  is  to  be  educated,  to  be 
built  up  into  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  the  vast  masses 
of  foreigners  that  are  mingling  with  our  people.  Con- 
sider what  a  work  there  is  for  the  Christian  heart  to  do 
in  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land ;  in  the  North, 
in  the  South,  in  the  East,  in  the  West,  in  every  State, 
in  every  section,  but  particularly  in  the  great,  new  em- 
pires that  are  growing  up  in  our  midst !  The  question 
i* 


10  LECTUEES   ON  PREACHING. 

that  is  seriously  asked  by  every  thoughtful  Christian 
mind  is  :  How  shall  we  supply  the  gospel  to  these  vast, 
needy  masses  ? 

WHAT  IS  A  CHURCH? 

Now,  in  going  out  among  such  populations  you  will 
find,  drifting  in  the  mass,  here  and  there,  single  families, 
single  individuals,  of  trained  intelligence  and  moral 
worth;  but  society  itself,  at  large,  is  not  yet  formed, 
and  certainly  its  institutions  are  not  formed.  One  of 
the  first  experiences  that  a  young  preacher  has,  in  going 
into  new  fields,  is  the  necessity  of  gathering  and  form- 
ing a  church.  The  first  question  that  comes  up,  then, 
is  this :  Have  you  learned  anything  in  the  seminary 
which  will  enable  you  to  gather  and  form  a  church  ? 

What  is  your  idea  of  a  church  ?  Suppose  you  were 
thrown  down  to-day  in  the  midst  of  three  thousand  or 
five  thousand  people,  along  some  of  the  new  railroads, 
that  have  been  gathered  there  in  one  or  two  months, — 
have  you  any  aptitudes  ?  Have  you  any  thoughts  or 
plans  ?  Do  you  know  what  you  would  do  ?  You  have 
heard  the  churches  discussed  as  Protestant  and'  Catho- 
lic; that  is  all  very  well.  The  notes  of  the  church  have 
probably  been  sounded  in  your  ears  through  all  your 
studies.  All  very  fine  are  these  theories  of  the  churches 
and  their  claims,  but  they  are  very  different  things  from 
the  practical  church  which  you  have  got  to  use  when 
you  get  among  poor,  common  people. 

Here,  then,  is  the  root  of  the  church :  I  hold  it  to  be 
simply  the  development  of  social  influences  around  a 
central  spiritual  element,  to  keep  it  warm,  to  keep  it 
alive.  I  hold  that  it  is  impossible,  in  respect  to  the 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  11 

mass  of  men,  to  develop  the  spiritual  element  except 
by  the  active  and  the  reactive  influence  of  the  domes- 
tic and  social  feelings.  Indeed,  the  church  itself  is 
founded  upon  this  philosophical  principle,  namely,  that 
the  higher  spiritual  elements  in  men  are  so  weak  as  to 
need  the  auxiliary  influence  of  the  more  common  social 
feelings.  Thus  the  very  root  idea  of  a  church  is  to 
get  men  together  in  their  religious  life,  that  they  may 
help  themselves  and  each  other  by  their  social  rela- 
tions. 

THE  FIRST   STEP. 

Therefore,  in  going  into  any  field,  your  first  work  will 
be  to  find  out,  Is  there  one  man  ?  If  there  is,  are  there 
two,  three  ?  Can  I  find  six  persons  in  this  community, 
whom  I  can  get  together  to  meet  me,  and  who  will  talk 
on  the  subject  of  religion  together,  and  let  one  another 
know  their  wants,  their  hopes,  their  feelings  ?  Take 
a  stick  of  pine  and  put  it  down  here,  another  there, 
and  another  yonder,  and  set  them  on  fire ;  they  will 
all  go  out.  If  you  take  those  different  sticks  and  put 
them  together,  they  will  all  burn  throughout  to  ashes. 
You  can  keep  up  an  inflammation  when  you  put  them, 
together,  but  you  cannot  if  you  separate  them  and  let 
each  one  burn  by  itself.  Now,  churches  are  made  like 
fires,  and  not  as  the  light  of  single  candles ;  therefore, 
when  a  person  goes  into  a  new  community,  the  first 
problem  is  how  to  draw  together  those  that  are  begin- 
ning to  feel  the  dawning  of  the  Divine  life. 

THE  PREACHER'S  PERSONALITY. 

You  will  probably  find,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  that 
there  is  no  strength,  or  available  material,  in  the 


12  LECTUEES   ON  PEEACHING. 

church  that  is  any  great  help  to  you.  Have  you  in 
yourself  the  power  to  be  the  fountain  ?  Have  you  the 
passion  by  which  you  can  take  those  five,  six,  ten,  fif- 
teen or  twenty  persons,  and,  grouping  them  together, 
breathe  into  them  a  common  life,  a  sympathy,  a  love  of 
friendship  and  sociality  ?  Though  that  is  to  be  inspired 
and  carried  up  as  far  as  possible;  yet  that  is  only  the 
beginning;  for  through  that  and  by  that  you  must 
breathe  into  them  a  church  life  and  religious  feeling. 
That  is  the  first  work.  I  have  seen  a  great  .many  men 
in  my  former  life  in  the  West,  who  came  out  from  New 
England  well  equipped  and  well  intentioned.  Usually 
they  spent  the  first  year  of  their  life  in  bemoaning  a 
want  of  Eastern  institutions.  The  second  year  was 
better,  but  their  action  was  awkward  and  ineffectual. 
It  was  about  the  third  year  before  they  fell  into  the 
spirit  of  their  mission,  so  that  they  could  improve  all 
their  time,  and  begin  the  work  that  is  to  be  done  in 
new  fields  by  gathering  people  together. 

But  when  you  go  into  such  a  field  to  preach,  you  may 
lay  up  all  your  written  sermons  on  the  shelf.  People 
won't  come  to  hear  them.  In  the  first  instance,  you 
will  have  to  take  your  Bible  in  your  hand  and  go  to 
them,  go  to  them  in  their  fields,  their  cabins,  or  their 
houses.  Preaching  does  not  mean  pulpit,  thank  God ! 
Preaching  means  making  known  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  Christ,  to  one,  to  forty,  or  to  a  hundred,  as  the  case  may 
be.  He  who  is  a  teacher,  and  who  pours  the  inspired, 
Divine  truth  into  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men, 
is  preaching.  That  is  preaching;  not  yet  in  the  largest 
development  of  it,  but  in  its  elements,  in  its  seed-forms. 
A  man,  therefore,  who  goes,  I  won't  say  to  ring  the  bell, 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  13 

because  there  will  be  none ;  I  won't  say  to  call  the 
people  to  church,  because  there  will  be  no  church  build- 
ing ;  but  who  goes  as  a  minister  into  a  county  where 
are  scattered,  we  will  say,  five  thousand  people,  goes  to 
hunt  up  the  lost  sheep,  to  talk  with  them,  man  by 
man,  household  by  household,  to  pray  in  their  families, 
to  make  himself  literally  a  shepherd,  seeking  a  scat- 
tered flock,  —  that  man  is  a  true  preaclur  of  the  Word, 
in  the  highest  and  best  sense  of  the  term. 

EEFLEX  INFLUENCE  AND   EDUCATION. 

And  what  will  be  the  reflex  influence  upon  you,  — 
you  that  have  to  gq  out  after  men  ?  If  your  heart  is  in 
it,  if  you  love  the  work  because  you  love  God,  and 
because  you  really  yearn  for  men,  it  will  become  so 
delightful  to  you  that  you  could  scarcely  be  induced 
to  leave  it.  There  is  a  pleasure  in  the  sense  of  having 
given  up  everything  for  Christ.  There  is  a  deep  en- 
joyment in  having  devoted  yourself,  soul  and  body,  to 
the  welfare  of  your  fellow-men,  so  that  you  have  no 
thought  and  no  care  but  for  them.  There  is  a  pleasure 
in  that,  which  is  never  touched  by  any  ordinary  expe- 
riences in  human  life.  It  is  the  highest.  If  it  be 
solitary,  so  much  the  worse.  If  it  be  occasional,  so 
much  the  worse.  But  there  is  in  it  a  pleasure,  I  think, 
next  allied  to  the  raptures  of  heaven.  And  a  man  who 
has  but  his  Bible  and  knows  that ;  who  goes  searching 
out  in  these  new  places  those  that  need  the  truth,  and 
proclaims  it  to  them,  and  then,  as  one  and  another  heart 
is  opened  to  him,  gathers  them  together,  organizes  them 
into  a  society ;  calls  it  a  church,  or  an  assembly  of  God's 
people;  begins  then  to  fan  the  social  feeling,  bringing. 


14  LECTURES   ON   PREACHING. 

them  more  and  more  into  friendly  relations  with  one 
another,  teaching  them,  administering  the  ordinances, 
being  himself  minister  (that  is,  servant,  slave  of  all, 
doing  all  work)  —  that  man,  I  think,  will  have  more 
joy  in  the  ministry  than  any  other. 

At  any  rate,  I  look  back  to  my  own  missionary  days 
as  being  transcendently  the  happiest  period  of  my  life. 
I  look  back  to  the  childhood  of  my  ministry  as  most  of 
you  look  back  to  the  childhood  of  your  life.  The  sweet- 
est pleasures  I  have  ever  known  are  not  those  that  I 
have  now,  but  those  that  I  remember,  when  I  was  un- 
known, in  an  unknown  land,  among  a  scattered  people, 
mostly  poor,  and  to  whom  I  had  to  go  and  preach  the 
gospel,  man  by  man,  house  by  house,  gathering  them  on 
Sundays,  a  few,  —  twenty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred,  as  the  case 
might  be,  —  and  preaching  the  gospel  more  formally  to 
them,  as  they  were  able  to  bear  it. 

ELEMENTS  OF  POWER  GAINED— CREATIVENESS  —  REALITY. 

Creativeness,  then,  is  one  of  the  elements  that  will  be 
developed  in  you  by  this  earnest  striving  of  all  your 
powers  to  inspire  men,  to  draw  them  together,  to  organ- 
ize them  into  a  living,  growing  church.  There  will  also 
be  developed  the  element  of  reality  in  preaching.  A 
large  amount  of  preaching  has  come  to  be  upon  ques- 
tions that  have  been  spun  and  run  out  by  philosophical 
consideration  into  nice  but  not  very  useful  discrimi- 
nations —  questions  of  theology,  questions  of  evidence, 
— a  thousand  intellectual  and  moral  distinctions,  which 
are  not  unadapted  to  the  higher  forms  of  civilization, 
but  which  have  no  relation  to  the  great  mass  of  the 
people. 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  15 

But  he  who  goes  into  a  new  field  to  work,  goes  where 
everything  is  to  be  done  for  a  purpose,  and  with  men 
as  they  are.  There  is  a  reality  about  everything  he 
does,  which  does  not  belong  to  older  parishes ;  and 
this  will  make  him  intensely  practical,  intensely  real. 
Going  into  a  new  field  in  this  way,  one  has,  if  I  may 
say  so,  an  emancipation,  a  liberty,  which  the  conven- 
tions of  older  society  would  scarcely  allow  him. 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

The  exercise  of  his  own  primary  personal  humanity  is 
invaluable  to  him  in  the  whole  course  and  career  of  his 
life.  It  gives  him  a  certain  strong  individuality.  Men 
in  new  countries  walk  singly,  men  in  old  countries  walk 
in  platoons,  in  companies,  and  in  regiments.  We  do 
what  others  do.  We  want  to  know  what  is  the  custom ; 
and  that  has  the  force  of  law.  And  so  men  are  gradu- 
ally conformed.  They  smooth  off  all  individual  ex- 
crescences, and  adapt  themselves  to  the  notions  and 
manners  of  others.  Nothing  of  this  kind  can  exist  in 
new  States  and  settlements.  The  consequence  is,  that 
men  who  are  there  formed  have  intense  individuality, 
which  gives  a  great  deal  of  force. 

I  have  seen  many  men  in  older  communities,  who,  I 
think,  have  wasted  their  lives  by  repressing  the  things 
which  are  peculiar  to  them,  and  in  which  there  would 
have  been  a  signal  power.  They  have  repressed  them 
in  deference  to  the  customs  of  the  community ;  and 
those  things  in  them  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
salient  and  powerful  die  within  them  unknown  and 
unused 


16  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 


WORK  FROM  THE   BOTTOM  UPWARD. 

In  making  your  selection  of  a  field,  then,  when  you 
are  about  to  go  out  from  study  to  practical  work,  the 
principle,  it  seems  to  me,  on  which  you  should  choose, 
should  be,  not  "  What  is  best  for  me  ? "  but  "  What  is 
best  for  the  cause  of  God  among  men  ? "  Not  "  Where 
can  I  be  settled  among  refined  and  affectionate  people  ? " 

—  though  I  do  not  consider  that  an  offence,  or  a  crime ; 

—  not  "Where  can  I  have  a  stipend  that  shall  amply 
support  all  reasonable  wants  ? "  —  though  I  do  not  con- 
sider that  a  vicious  desire ;  —  not  "  Where  shall  I  have 
an  appreciative  audience  in  which  my  peculiar  kind  of 
talent,  my  refinement,  my  poetical  tendencies,  or  my 
subtle  philosophical  nature,  would  have  a  fair,  agreeable 
opportunity  ? "     Although  there   may  be  cases    (God 
knows ;  we  don't,  always)  where  a  man  would  better 
settle  in  an  old  community  on  these  very  accounts,  —  I 
do  not  debar  men  from  regular  churches,  — yet,  unless  a 
case  can  be  made  out  specially,  it  seems  to  me  the  pre- 
sumption is  that  every  young  man  should  go  into  work 
at  the  bottom.     And  this  may  be  either  in  the  open 
field,  as  it  were,  or  in  the  cities.     If  you  go  into  the 
open-field  work,  as  I  have  already  said  to  you,  you  will 
have  your  special  difficulties,  such  as  belong  to  a  sparse 
population ;  but,  generally  speaking,  you  will  be  com- 
paratively free  from  dealing  with  men  of  vicious  habits. 
Not  that  there  are  not  rougher  neighborhoods  among 
the  new  lands,  where  men  are  coarse  and  animal,  but 
that  the  special  "  criminal  classes "  hardly  exist  there. 
In  cities,  on  the  other  hand,  men  undertaking  untilled 
fields  of  labor  usually  find  themselves  in  sinks  of  bad- 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  17 

ness,  more  or  less ;  and,  under  such  circumstances,  this 
choice  implies  even  more  self-denial  than  comes  with 
the  attempt  to  create  churches  in  the  newer  settle- 
ments of  the  West  and  the  South,  because  it  necessitates 
dealing  with  natures  far  more  perverted  than  the  aver- 
age of  men  who  have  the  hardy  vigor  and  independence 
to  settle  a  new  country.  Therefore,  in  the  formation  of 
schools,  mission-schools,  or  little  praying  circles,  which 
are  nascent  churches,  in  the  cities,  you  have  still  more 
to  deal  with  the  personal  principle.  You  have  to  bring 
to  bear  on  men  still  more  directly  the  power  of  your 
own  direct,  personal  influence.  You  are  to  be  yourself 
the  channel  through  which  the  Spirit  of  God  works 
upon  the  hearts  of  these  men ;  and  you  must  do  for  them, 
in  your  measure,  what  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  done  for  you.  You  must  carry 
their  sorrows.  You  must  take,  in  one  sense,  the  pun- 
ishment of  their  sins.  You  must  suffer  with  them. 
You  must  abase  yourself,  and  go  down  to  their  condition. 

AN  APOSTOLIC   EXEMPLAR. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  cogency  of  argu- 
mentative preaching,  about  the  eloquence  of  preaching. 
When  shall  we  hear  about  the  power  that  comes  from 
self-abnegation  in  preachers,  —  the  losing  of  self  ?  Do 
you  know  how  many  hundred,  how  many  thousand, 
ministers  there  are  in  the  United  States  to-day  who 
have  no  charges,  nothing  to  do  ?  Do  you  know  how 
many  thousand  churches  there  are  that  are  vacant  to- 
day in  the  United  States ;  churches  already  formed, 
but  without  anybody  to  minister  to  them  ?  Here  are  a 
thousand  ministers ;  nobody  wants  them.  Here  are  a 


18  LECTUKES   ON  PKEACHING. 

> 

thousand  churches  ;  nobody  wants  them,  —  empty,  hol- 
low. Never  such  a  time,  never  such  an  opening,  never 
such  a  need  in  the  world  as  to-day ;  and  yet  thousands 
of  men  there  are  —  not  drafted  into  other  departments, 
not  carrying  on  a  part  of  the  great  collateral  work  — 
who  are  destitute  of  that  peculiar  spirit  which  should 
lead  them  to  "  spend  and  be  spent,"  as  the  Apostle  was 
willing  to  do  and  to  be. 

Let  me  read  you  a  paragraph :  "  Behold,  the  third 
time  I  am.  ready  to  come  to  you,  and  I  will  not  be  bur- 
densome to  you ;  for  I  seek  not  yours,  but  you.  For  the 
children  ought  not  to  lay  up  for  the  parents,  but  the 
parents  for  the  children.  And  I  will  very  gladly  spend 
and  be  spent  for  you ;  though  the  more  abundantly  I 
love  you,  the  less  I  be  loved." 

Now,  there  are  a  great  many  splendid  things  that 
Paul  has  said ;  but,  judging  them  in  the  moral  sphere,  I 
do  not  think  he  ever  said  another  thing  that  so  drank 
up  into  itself  the  very  quintessential  spirit  of  the  gos- 
pel as  that  last,  —  that  he  was  willing  to  spend  and  be 
spent  for  them,  even  though  the  more  intensely  he 
loved  them  and  sacrificed  himself  for  them,  the  less 
he  should  be  loved  of  them. 

We  love  loveliness.  "We  love  them  that  love  us. 
But  Paul  knew  he  was  a  strong  man,  and  has  told  us 
so  on  divers  occasions ;  he  knew  he  had  power  second 
to  none ;  but  he  gave  it  to  these  people  who  were  very 
dear  to  him,  saying,  "  I  am  willing  to  give  more  ;  I  am 
willing  to  be  utterly  ransacked  and  used  up  for  you ; 
I  am  willing  to  do  it,  though  I  were  to  find  a  decrease 
in  your  affection  and  esteem  for  me  in  the  proportion 
in  which  I  love  you  more  and  more."  This  loving 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  19 

against  all  obstacles,  this  all-surrendering  power  of 
love,  —  this  is  what  is  wanted  in  Christian  ministers. 

THE  POWER  OF  CHRISTIAN  HEROISM. 

There  are  no  difficulties  to-day  that  are  not  surmount- 
able. The  gospel  has  not  lost  a  particle  of  its  power.  I 
hear  a  great  deal  said  about  Christianity  passing  away. 
When  Christianity  has  passed  away  out  of  this  globe, 
my  friends,  there  will  be  nothing  of  the  earth  left. 
Christianity  is  not  the  technic  of  theology ;  it  is  not 
the  organ  or  the  ordinances  of  the  church ;  it  is  the 
development  of  Divine  power,  truth,  equity,  and  love 
in  the  most  noble  of  all  conceivable  forms.  And  the 
intrinsic  power  of  such  developments  will  never  weaken 
or  fail.  It  is  the  type  of  the  Divine  nature  made 
manifest  by  Christ,  and,  by  the  Apostles,  afterwards, 
brought  as  an  active  force  into  life  and  applied  to  men. 
Do  you  believe  that  the  heroism  of  love,  that  the  am- 
plitude of  a  cheerful  and  a  heroic  self-denial,  that  tears 
for  others  and  joy  in  others,  have  lost  their  power  in 
this  world  ?  A  man  in  Christ  Jesus  to-day  is  just  as 
noble  and  as  powerful  as  he  ever  was,  and  becomes 
more  and  more  so,  with  the  refinements  and  exalta- 
tions of  life.  The  trouble  is  that  ministers  have  be- 
come professional,  have  become  class-men.  They  work 
for  single  strata  in  society ;  they  work  for  the  higher 
ranges  of  life.  They  are  lifted  above  the  necessity  of 
emptying  themselves.  They  can  hardly  be  said  to  fol- 
low Him,  the  delineation  of  whose  life  is  a  perpetual 
lesson  to  us. 

"  Let  this  mind  be  in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ 
Jesus.  He,  being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not 


20  LECTUKES   ON  PREACHING. 

robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,  but  made  himself  of  no 
reputation,  and  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant,  and 
was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men ;  and,  being  found  in 
fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled  himself  and  became  obe- 
dient unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross."  There 
was  no  obstacle  to  stop  him.  It  was  the  holy,  impetu- 
ous downward  plunging  of  love  till  it  should  reach  the 
very  bottom  below,  where  there  was  no  sentient  life. 
That  is  the  example  of  Christ ;  there  is  the  divinity  of 
Christ ;  there  is  the  example  and  the  type  which  the 
Christian  minister  is  to  follow. 

THE  NEED   OF  TO-DAY. 

So,  if  he  go  into  his  place  of  labor  and  preach  without 
fruits,  it  is  not  that  the  gospel  has  lost  its  power  ;  it  is 
that  he  has  lost  his  power.  If  men  seek  to  do  good,  and 
find  that  they  are  so  restricted  and  limited  in  our  day, 
it  is  simply  because  they  are  not  clothed  with  those 
moral  impulses  and  that  moral  power  from  which  origi- 
nally the  gospel  took  its  impetus,  and  which  are  still 
just  as  competent  to  the  production  of  like  effects  as 
they  ever  were.  When  we  have  a  generation  of  men 
that  are  otherwise  as  amply  equipped  as  they  are  in 
knowledge  and  in  aptitude  for  using  knowledge ;  who 
are  willing  to  make  themselves  a  little  lower  than  the 
least,  willing  to  take  the  humblest  places,  willing  to 
abide  there  so  long  as  they  are  needed  and  till  they  are 
called  by  the  unequivocal  voice  of  God's  providence 
away  from  those  spheres, —  as  soon  as  we  see  such  a 
generation  of  ministers,  just  so  soon  shall  we  see  more 
than  the  old  Pentecostal  glories  upon  the  earth !  We 
have  need  of  such  ministers. 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  21 

You  cannot  lift  up  the  ignorance  in  our  land,  you 
cannot  go  into  the  squalor  and  poverty  that  begrime 
our  cities,  you  cannot  preach  the  gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture, unless  you  are  baptized  into  this  higher  Christian 
spirit,  and  are  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent,  —  loved 
or  unloved,  as  the  case  may  be,  —  and  to  continue  the 
work  of  God  in  the  salvation  of  souls. 

MISSION-WORK  THE  BEST   TRAINING. 

And  when  one  has  wrought  patiently  and  with  the 
expectation,  perhaps,  of  spending  his  life  in  such  a 
sphere  as  this  (and,  if  God  so  wills,  he  will  gladly  continue 
to  serve  Christ  there),  if  afterwards  he  should  be  brought 
by  God's  providence  into  a  higher  sphere,  he  will  be  as 
much  better  qualified  for  that  higher  sphere  as  the  work 
which  he  has  gone  through  is  a  higher  education  than  any 
mere  intellectual  training.  He  never  will  lose  that  love 
for  men,  he  never  will  lose  that  close  sympathy  with 
them,  he  never  will  lose  that  earnestness,  he  never  will 
lose  that  practicalness,  which  this  early  training  gives. 
His  sermons  will  glow,  they  will  be  full  of  power,  and 
he  will  have  and  will  exercise  among  men  that  subtle 
influence  which  comes  from  this  development  of  a  great 
Christian  humanity  by  work  under  circumstances  of 
self-denial  and  toil  among  his  fellow-men. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Is  not  the  young  minister  choosing  his  place  a  little  like  a 
young  lady  choosing  her  husband  ? 

MR.  BEECHER. — Yes,  sir;  I  think  it  is  a  thing  that 
is  done  on  both  sides.  I  think  as  many  young  ladies 
choose  as  gentlemen,  only  it  is  done  in  a  little  more 
delicate  manner,  and  indirectly. 


22  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Q.  How  often,  should  you  judge,  has  a  young  minister  occasion 
to  choose  any  more  than,  as  you  stated  at  the  start,  between  a 
foreign  or  home  mission  on  the  one  hand,  and  leaving  himself  at 
the  disposal  of  the  providence  of  God  and  the  church  on  the 
other  1  Can  he  pick  out  a  parish  for  himself  honestly  or  hon- 
orably 1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  think  there  may  be  circumstances 
in  which  a  young  man  will  say,  "  I  am  shut  up,  in  my 
own  judgment  and  in  the  judgment  of  wise  friends, 
to  just  so  much  of  a  career.  I  am  at  liberty  to  do 
only  just  such  things " ;  and  where  that  is  honestly 
the  case,  I  think  he  is  to  act  as  fearlessly  and  with  as 
little  self-condemnation  as  in  any  other  circumstances. 
What  I  wanted  to  impress  upon  you  was,  that  with  a 
class  of  students  brought  up  in  an  old  community,  and 
surrounded  by  worthy  and  excellent  churches,  the  gen- 
eral tendency  will  be  to  make  themselves  the  carriers- 
on  of  other  men's  work ;  and  that,  for  the  purpose  of 
gaining  a  higher  discipline  and  education,  it  is  worth 
every  man's  while  to  go  into  new  fields,  where  he  has 
to  begin  the  work,  a  creator  himself,  and  become  the 
minister  of  an  older  church  at  a  later  period,  with  an 
ampler  education  and  experience. 

The  gentleman  who  asked  the  preceding  questions  [the  EEV. 
DR.  BACON]  then  said  :  "  I  asked  that  question,  not  as  imply- 
ing any  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  lecturer,  for  I  feel  most 
heartily  thankful  for  the  whole  current  of  thought  in  this  lecture, 
and  for  the  very  vivid  and  desirable  impression  which  I  believe 
it  has  produced  upon  all  our  minds,  but  for  the  sake  of  inten- 
sifying this  idea :  that  it  does  not  become  a  young  minister  or  a 
candidate  for  the  ministry  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  a  place  where 
he  can  get  introduced  ;  and  that  he  should  leave  himself  in  the 
hands  of  God's  providence  and  of  the  church.  And,  if  he  is  not 


CHOOSING  THE  FIELD.  23 

satisfied  with,  that,  let  him  put  himself  under  the  care  of  the 
Methodist  Conference, —  there  are  those  here  who  are  able  to  give 
him  advice  in  that  respect,  —  and  let  them  dispose  of  him." 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  gentlemen,  you  may  laugh  at 
that  matter,  but  in  the  "West  I  lived  right  alongside  of 
Methodists,  where  I  was  in  the  minority  and  they  were 
in  the  majority,  as  is  overwhelmingly  the  case  in  In- 
diana ;  and  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  working  of  that 
system.  Of  course  it  is  not  perfect,  nor  is  any  other 
system  perfect ;  but  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any 
other  system  on  earth  in  which  you  can  take  men  at 
the  state  in  which  they  take  them  there,  with  as  few 
aptitudes,  and  then  work  up  as  good  ministers  out  of 
them  by  training,  as  they  do.  And  I  attribute  their 
success  to  this  simple  fact,  that  they  put  the  Bible  into 
a  man's  hand  and  send  him  out  among  the  people.  It 
is  the  grinding  of  a  man  upon  other  men  that  makes 
him  sharp.  Of  course,  if  you  have  men  that  are  educated 
to  begin  with,  it  will  be  still  better.  But  the  Methodist 
brethren  take  men,  literally,  right  from  the  plow, 
from  the  flail,  who  cannot  even  speak  good  English. 
I  knew  good  "  Old  Sorrel,"  as  we  used  to  call  him,  of 
Indiana;  now  a  sound,  well-educated,  cultivated  man, 
a  man  of  great  influence  and  power.  But  when  he 
first  went  on  the  circuit  in  the  Whitewater  valley,  he 
did  n't  know  enough  to  tell  the  number  of  the  verse  of 
the  text.  He  had  to  count  off  from  the  beginning, 
"  one,  two,  three,  four,"  in  order  to  announce  "  the  fourth 
chapter  and  the  sixteenth  verse."  They  take  just  such 
men,  in  the  West,  and  put  them  into  a  field  and  set 
them  at  work ;  and  they  grow  all  the  time.  They  are 
reading  as  they  ride ;  their  library  is  in  their  saddle- 


24 


LECTURES   ON  PEEACHING. 


bags ;  they  are  reading  in  their  cabins.  They  unfold 
slowly,  but  the 'beauty  of  it  is,  that  they  are  all  the 
time  bringing  what  knowledge  they  have,  to  bear  upon 
other  men.  This  working  of  men  on  men  is  the  way 
to  make  men,  and  workers. 


II. 

PRAYEE. 

ANY  an  enthusiast,  when  he  begins  his  ca- 
reer as  preacher,  is  subject  to  a  disenchant- 
ment of  the  rudest  kind.  He  has  been 
brought  up  to  think  of  the  Christian  minis- 
try as  the  noblest  profession  which  can  occupy  and  task 
the  human  mind.  He  has  looked  at  it  in  its  ideal  per- 
fection, he  has  thought  of  it  as  springing  from  the  will 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  standing,  therefore, 
upon  the  highest  place  of  sanctity.  And  he  loves  — 
perhaps  not  altogether  from  selfish  reasons  —  to  surround 
it  in  his  thought  with  Divine  authority,  with  pre-emi- 
nence, with  all  that  shall  give  him  the  right  to  stand, 
as  the  representative  of  the  Lord  in  the  community,  to 
make  known  the  law  of  God,  and  to  enforce  that  law. 

But  no  man  will  go  into  the  field  to-day  and  not  find 
himself  in  practical  experience  stripped  of  much  of 
this  expected  power.  He  will  find  the  pulpit  sub- 
ject to  the  same  law  which  acts  in  other  institutions. 
The  strong  will  be  strong,  the  weak  will  be  weak,  the 
poor  will  be  poor,  the  spiritually  rich  will  be  rich ;  and 
there  is  many  a  man  who  expected  to  walk  in  the  high 

VOL.   II.  2 


26  LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

places  of  the  earth  that  goes  pitapat,  pitapat,  down 
behind  the  hill,  and  hides  himself  in  great  disappoint- 
ment. And  it  is  worth  our  while  to  take  into  considera- 
tion, not  how  Christianity  stands,  but  how  the  Chris- 
tian ministry  and  the  Christian  church  stand  to-day,  and 
what  is  their  relation  to  the  community. 

CHANGED  POSITION  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

Certainly  the  position  of  God's  kingdom  in  the  world 
is  not  such  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  before  the 
Christian  church  was  born,  while  it  was  carried  in  the 
loins  of  the  Jewish  church.  Still  less  is  it  as  it  was  in 
those  ages  in  which  the  Christian  church  was  the  rival 
of  the  State  itself,  and  dominated  nations  and  held  the 
universal  conscience  in  awe  and  fear.  That  is  past.  It 
will  never  probably  come  again  on  earth.  Few  places 
yet  remain  with  such  ancient  notions  that  children, 
looking  out  of  the  door  and  seeing  the  minister  walking 
with  all  the  dignity  of  the  institution  upon  him,  run 
back,  afraid  of  him.  With  the  old  staff,  and  with  the 
old  buckles,  and  with  the  old  three-cornered  hat,  has 
gone  a  great  deal  besides  the  habiliments. 

GROWTH  OF   OTHER  PROFESSIONS  IN  LEARNING. 

There  are  other  people  in  the  community  that  have 
ranged  up  beside,  in  many  respects  overtopped,  the 
Christian  ministry.  For,  once  the  church  was  the  main 
repository  of  learning,  and  the  ministry  were  on  the 
whole  in  advance  of  the  community  in  solid  learn- 
ing. The  Christian  ministry  still,  in,  I  think,  almost 
every  land,  may  be  said  to  be  soundly  educated,  and 
to  compare  favorably  with  any  of  the  learned  profes- 


PRAYER.  27 

sions ;  but  it  has  lost  the  distinction  of  pre-eminence 
in  this  regard.  It  is  no  more  looked  up  to  as  the  cus- 
todian of  knowledge.  Not  that  it  has  lost  any;  not 
that  it  has  not  gained ;  but  that  other  professions, 
through  a  larger  and  more  liberal  method  of  education, 
have  also  gained  in  knowledge,  and  the  whole  commu- 
nity has  grown,  both  in  intelligence  and  knowledge. 
The  distance  between  the  top  and  the  bottom  of  society 
is  growing  less  and  less.  Not  so  much  because  the  top 
does  not  grow,  but  because  the  bottom  is  growing  up 
all  the  time.  The  relative  distance,  therefore,  between 
the  preacher  and  the  hearer  is  lessened  continually,  and 
will  doubtless  go  on  to  be  lessened. 

THE  SPREAD   OF  LETTERS. 

Nor  are  we  to  forget  that  the  pulpit,  to-day,  is  not 
what  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago,  certainly  not  what  it 
was  anterior  to  that  date,  as  a  vehicle  for  communica- 
ting knowledge.  It  was  not  only  the  encyclopedia,  but 
it  was  the  literature,  almost.  It  had  the  function  of 
making  known  to  the  great  body  of  peasants,  to  the 
yeomen,  to  the  great  middle  class,  to  the  ordinary 
households  of  the  community,  everything  they  learned 
above  the  usual  level  of  their  own  lives.  It  was 
from  the  pulpit,  either  on  the  Sabbath  or  by  the  pre- 
lections of  the  week,  that  the  most  knowledge  was 
gained.  The  schoolmaster  did  well,  but  the  minister 
was  the  teacher-in-chief. 

But,  to-day,  there  is  no  such  thing  possible.  We 
speak  once  in  seven  days ;  there  are  newspapers  with 
fifty  thousand  tongues,  that  speak  seven  times  in  seven 
days.  We  speak  what  little  we  can  weave  into  our 


28  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

periodical  sermonizings,  but  books  are  flying  every- 
where; magazines  of  every  dimension  and  every  de- 
scription are  penetrating  the  nooks  and  corners  of  so- 
ciety. The  carman  that  sits  down  to  eat  his  nooning 
meal  reads  as  he  eats.  Men  that  travel  are  stuffed  with 
pamphlets,  with  books,  with  printed  matter  of  every 
sort.  Science  is  cheap,  literature  is  cheap,  all  fictions 
are  cheap,  and  are  serving  everything  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest  interests  of  society,  from  the  most  sacred 
to  the  meanest  and  wickedest.  The  pulpit  cannot  in 
celerity,  certainly  not  in  versatility  and  abundance, 
come  into  comparison  with  them. 

In  the  work  of  the  dispersion  of  thought  and  knowl- 
edge over  the  world,  the  machinery  of  general  society 
has  been  augmented  almost  beyond  conception,  and  the 
pulpit  has  been  left  far  behind.  It  neither  stands 
ahead  of  the  other  professions  in  general  learning,  nor 
does  it  compare,  as  a  means  of  diffusing  knowledge, 
with  the  other  enginery  which  is  at  play  all  over  the 
globe. 

And  therefore  men  say,  "  The  pulpit  has  had  its  day." 
I  say  its  day  has  just  begun.  I  say  that  all  this  busi- 
ness of  taking  out  the  ore  of  knowledge  and  smelting  it, 
and  manufacturing  it,  and  carrying  it  commercially  to 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  which  has  been  so  long  per- 
formed by  the  ministerial  profession,  has  been  in  some 
sense  an  encumbrance  to  them.  It  has  not  been  alto- 
gether a  power.  It  has  given  a  distinction  to  the  min- 
istry and  an  authority  to  the  church ;  it  has  wrought  out 
pride  and  vanity  and  unwarrantable  claims,  which  the 
church  is  better  without  than  with. 


PRAYEB.  29 


THE   CHUKCH   ONE   FORCE  AMONG  MANY. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  men  do  not  take  into 
consideration  the  fact,  that,  in  any  community,  the 
church  is  now  only  one  of  the  potentially  organized 
influences  or  forces  that  are  at  work.  The  numerous 
industrial  vocations  of  society,  and  the  commercial  vo- 
cations (for  they  may  still  be  classed  generically  with 
the  industrial),  so  widely  extended  and  calling  to  their 
service  such  able  men  and  so  many  of  them,  —  these 
forces  that  thunder  at  the  bottom  of  society  are  tremen- 
dous, and  are  not  to  be  despised  because  they  are  nor- 
mal. And  if  they  follow  the  line  of  the  Divine  intent, 
they  are  working  at  fundamental  morals,  working  in 
the  direction  of  a  true  manhood.  But  they  are  organ- 
ized, they  are  necessary,  they  are  going  forward  with 
vast  power.  If  one  abstracts  them,  and  in  his  imagina- 
tion considers  what  is  the  force  of  the  hammer  and  of 
the  saw  and  of  the  plane,  what  is  the  power  of  the  en- 
gine, and  of  the  very  many  men  that  manipulate  them 
in  society,  it  would  seem  as  if  the  globe  itself  had 
become  one  vast  smithy,  and  there  were  more  than 
human  forces  working  in  the  shop  and  upon  the  anvil. 
And  the  pulpit  has  got  to  operate  in  communities  that 
are  already  possessed  by  these  intense  industrial  forces. 
Kay,  there  are  also  all  the  trades  and  avocations  of  every 
kind,  the  liberal  professions,  as  they  are  called,  and,  be- 
sides these,  the  whole  swarm  of  special  organizations,  — 
what  may  be  called  the  skirmishers  of  civilization,  the 
lyceum,  the  masonic  lodge,  the  literary  association,  the 
benevolent  and  reformatory  and  temperance  societies, 
and  what  not,  —  hundreds,  multiplying  with  astonish- 


30  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

ing  fecundity  every  year ;  all  these  influences  are  at 
work,  together  with  the  organized  forces  of  government 
itself.  And  when  the  young  man  goes  into  what  is 
called  a  public-spirited  town,  he  goes  into  a  church  that 
stands  in  the  midst  of  what  may  be  called  a  dozen  other 
churches,  only  secular  instead  of  religious, — organized 
forces  in  society.  They  belong  to  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence, and  they  are  workers  together  with  the  church, 
if  a  man  is  wise  to  understand  and  use  them.  If  a 
man  thinks  they  are  antagonistic,  if  he  looks  upon  them 
with  jealousy  and  calls  them  a  part  of  the  world,  ho 
separates  himself  by  just  so  much  from  the  Divine 
Providence  and  from  the  understanding  of  God's  will 
revealed  in  the  events  of  his  day.  For  all  these  great 
forces  have  in  them  a  certain  law,  that  of  custom ;  a  cer- 
tain ethic,  an  ethic  that  relates  to  a  man's  transactions 
in  so  far  as  the  business  of  any  given  circle  or  profes- 
sion is  concerned.  They  are  all  operating  upon  the 
minds  of  men. 

So  when  the  Sabbath  day  comes,  and  I  get  into  my 
pulpit,  do  you  suppose  I  go  there  now  with  these  people 
fresh  before  me,  all  virgin  silver,  all  unwrought  metal, 
thinking  that  I  am  the  first  man  that  has  had  hold  of 
them  and  the  last  that  will  have  hold  of  them,  in  re- 
spect to  affairs  ?  I  tell  you  these  men  have  been  exer- 
cised in  intellect  more  than  I  can  exercise  them,  —  these 
men  that  have  driving  behind  them  forces  which  impel 
them  to  complex,  discriminating  thought,  to  all  manner 
of  critical  inspection  and  judgment,  to  a  thousand  men- 
tal processes  which  I  cannot  by  mere  speaking  equal, 
—  these  men  have  all  of  them  been  touched  in  their 
sympathies.  They  have  been  driven  by  a  certain 


PRAYER.  31 

law-conscience  in  custom;  they  have  all  been  law- 
finders  or  law-breakers,  —  for  to  find  and  to  break  are 
almost  synonymous  in  human  life.  These  men  are 
operated  upon  by  a  hundred  living  forces  before  I  get  a 
chance  at  them.  These  forces  are  not  rhetorical,  they 
are  not  merely  enthusiastic ;  they  are  influences  that  are 
a  part  of  life,  that  belong  to  the  cradle,  the  table,  the 
fireside,  and  the  shop.  They  belong  to  that  life  which 
is  like  a  stream  from  which,  when  a  man  is  once  cast 
into  it,  he  cannot  escape  ;  he  goes  with  it  easily,  or,  if 
he  resists  it,  it  rolls  him  on  in  spite  of  himself. 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  PULPIT. 

The  pulpit,  then,  stands  up  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
organized  State,  with  industrial  forces  organized  and 
under  the  supervision  of  the  Divine  Providence ;  and  it 
is  one  force  among  many.  Now,  the  question  is:  shall 
the  pulpit  attempt  to  appropriate  to  itself  the  business 
of  all  these  ?  Why,  it  were  worse  than  folly.  Shall  the 
pulpit  undertake  to  put  itself  into  antagonism  with 
these  ?  That  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  to  go  into  an- 
tagonism to  God  in  his  providence.  What  is  the  great 
duty  of  the  ministry,  in  reference  to  these  organized 
forces  of  society  ?  It  is  to  spiritualize  them,  to  inspire 
them,  to  give  a  soul  to  the  great  working,  thinking, 
throbbing  world.  It  is  to  open  to  it  and  let  down  upon 
it  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  fire  of  the  in- 
visible world,  that  higher  and  nobler  consciousness  of 
humanity  which  is  struggling  blindly,  mutely,  down 
below,  but  which  gets  emancipation  on  the  Sabbath  day, 
when  men  come  to  know  what  are  the  meanings  of  all 
those  things,  dimly  seen  or  rudely  felt,  which  they  have 


32  LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

met  during  the  week.  And  the  minister  stands  there  to 
touch  actual  experiences,  manly  experiences,  noble  ex- 
periences ;  to  touch  them  as  the  sun  touches  the  cloud- 
storm  that  is  retiring  from  the  field,  when  all  colors 
spring  out  and  the  glory  of  God  rests  upon  it. 

In  this  light,  we  shall  go  to  our  preaching  work  un- 
der very  different  auspices  from  those  which  we  should 
be  likely  to  have  if  we  took  a  dilettante  view  of  the 
sacredness  of  the  Christian  ministry,  and  of  the  great 
authority  of  the  men  on  whom  the  hands  have  been 
placed,  and  who  have  the  right  to  say,  "  Do  this  and  do 
that,"  and  "  Be  thou  here  and  be  thou  there."  All  that 
power  is  stripped  away ;  that  is  all  gone.  You  cannot 
bring  it  back  by  tears,  nor  by  invocations,  —  thank  God  ! 
It  is  very  easy  for  you  to  stop  the  eagle  before  the  egg 
is  hatched,  but  no  art  was  ever  able  to  put  the  eagle 
back  into  his  egg  after  he  had  been  hatched. 

Society  is  a  part  of  God's  great  plan,  of  which  the 
church  is  the  servant  and  the  minister.  And  society, 
under  Divine  influence,  has  developed  these  very  things ; 
and  we  ought  to  recognize  that  these  are  part  of  the 
fruits  of  Christianity  itself,  —  of  Christianity  which  is 
infinitely  flexible  and  susceptible  of  development,  so 
that  it  constantly  meets  the  new  phases  and  new  as- 
pects of  affairs. 

THE  MINISTER'S  POWER. 

You  will  not,  therefore,  in  going  out  into  your  work, 
disesteem  intellectual  preparation,  as  though  it  were  a 
thing  not  necessary.  Yet,  remember,  you  are  not  going 
to  dominate  in  the  community  because  you  are  so  pow- 
erful in  intellect.  You  are  going  to  meet  on  each  side 


PRAYER.  33 

of  you  men  that  are  fully  your  equals.  You  ought  not 
to  lose  that  enthusiasm  for  truth  which,  if  carried  a 
little  too  far,  becomes  authority,  which  takes  on  the 
"airs"  of  right  and  of  rulership.  Every  man  should 
have  such  a  sense  of  what  is  becoming  to  truth,  to  vir- 
tue, to  piety,  and  to  God,  as  to  be  filled  with  a  sacred 
fire  of  championship,  with  an  enthusiasm  for  it.  But, 
after  all,  you  are  not  going  to  stand  in  this  world  as  the 
old  priests  stood.  That  place  is  gone.  Men  are  not 
going  to  reverence  you  striplings  just  because  you  are 
called  "  ministers."  Boys  are  you  now,  young  gentle- 
men. May  you  never  forget  to  be  boys  as  long  as  you 
live  !  But  putting  a  "  Reverend  "  before  your  name  is 
not  going  to  change  your  nature  or  your  function.  You 
are  to  stand  in  society  according  to  a  great  allotment, 
a  Divine  allotment  and  reason.  It  is  not  fear  of  you, 
it  is  not  reverence  for  you,  it  is  not  awe  for  the  sanctu- 
ary, for  the  day,  or  for  the  usage,  that  is  going  to  be  the 
secret  of  your  power,  if  you  have  any.  It  must  be  yours 
to  impart  to  all  the  other  great  organisms  of  society 
spiritual  tendencies  and  spiritual  directions.  Your  ge- 
nius, your  consecrated  intellect,  all  your  acquirements, 
all  your  knowledge  and  your  practical  skill,  will  be  vain, 
unless  you  succeed  in  opening  in  the  hearts  of  your 
hearers  individually,  and  in  the  community  where  you 
dwell,  a  higher  conception  of  what  life  means,  a  higher 
thought  of  what  manhood  is ;  unless  you  are  able  to 
bring  down  the  invisible  life,  and  give  it  as  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  visible. 

SPIRITUAL  PERSPECTIVE. 

The  old  pre-Eaphaelite  painters  —  if  you  have  ever 
2*  c 


34  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

cried  and  laughed  over  their  pictures  —  for  they  touch 
the  fountain  both  of  admiration  and  of  tears — painted 
with  exquisite  coloring  and  profound  sensibility;  but 
their  pictures  were  flat,  without  any  background,  with- 
out perspective,  without  foreshortening,  without  effect 
of  distance,  or  true  form,  or  atmosphere.  So  the  world 
is,  without  religion.  The  business  of  the  pulpit  is  to 
give  an  atmosphere  to  this  world,  and  to  put  things 
into  their  relative  places  and  due  proportions ;  to  spread 
out  that  which  the  sun  brings  over  the  great  globe, 
when  it  rises  with  healing  in  its  beams.  Your  busi- 
ness is  to  accept  the  world,  to  accept  mankind,  the 
great  brotherhood,  and  to  love  them,  and  to  have  such 
sacred  commerce  with  the  other  life  that  you  become  a 
channel,  conducting  the  Divine  grace  to  men.  I  be- 
lieve, too,  that  ordinances  are  channels  through  which 
Divine  grace  comes.  One  thinks  that  baptism  is  one 
of  the  channels,  and  others  think  that  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  another  of  the  channels.  I 
believe  that  there  are  these  side  channels,  but  the 
main  conduit  is  the  soul  of  man  that  loves  God  and 
loves  his  neighbor.  That  is  the  one  compendious  ordi- 
nance of  God,  and  that  is  the  artery  through  which 
God  mingles  his  grace  and  his  power,  to  be  felt  among 
men.  And  the  work  of  the  Christian  minister  is  so 
to  know  God,  and  Jesus  whom  he  sent,  so  to  realize 
them  in  his  own  heart,  that  he  shall  be  able  to  com- 
municate them  by  sympathy,  as  well  as  by  teaching,  to 
the  collective  body,  to  the  individual.  Yea,  they  are  to 
feed,  in  their  distributive  functions,  not  only  the  per- 
sons but  all  the  households,  all  the  associations,  all  the 
industries,  everything  that  belongs  to  the  community 


PRAYER.  35 

where  they  are  placed,  —  thus  not  simply  indoctrinat- 
ing, which  is  excellent,  which  is  a  very  good  base  from 
which  to  depart,  but  really  imparting  a  Divine  inspira- 
tion to  all  those  organized  forces  by  which  society  is 
developing  itself. 

The  church,  therefore,  stands,  in  rny  thought,  as  one 
among  many.  Is  it  the  highest  ?  It  may  be,  ought  to 
be.  It  is  in  its  real  nature  the  highest ;  it  is  not  al- 
ways practically  so.  There  is  many  and  many  a  house- 
hold in  town  a  thousand  times  nearer  heaven  than  the 
church  with  its  minister  and  all  its  elders  and  deacons 
put  together.  There  is  many  a  single  praying  soul, 
there  are  poor  women  in  obscurity  and  in  poverty,  that 
God's  angels  dwell  with  more  abundantly  than  they  do 
with  those  that  stand  in  conspicuity  of  exhibitive  holi- 
ness. The  higher  life  is  very  low.  "  He  that  would  be 
chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your  slave,  let  him  be  min- 
ister of  all." 

PRAYER  AS  AN  ELEMENT  OF  PREACHING. 

Now,  I  have  spoken  already,  in  former  lectures,  of  those 
elements  that  are  personal  to  you  in  this  work.  And 
I  shall,  this  year,  with  some  latitude  of  treatment,  speak 
of  those  auxiliary  elements  which  are  made  up  partly 
of  your  personality  and  partly  of  things  that  are  not 
you,  that  are  exterior  to  you.  And  I  purpose,  this  after- 
noon, in  order  to  come  by  and  Jby  to  the  subject  of  the 
prayer-meeting  in  the  church,  to  speak  of  prayer  as 
one  of  the  main  auxiliaries  by  which  the  minister  is 
to  perform  the  work  for  which  the  church  is  ordained 
among  men.  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the  question 
from  a  philosophical  stand-point.  If  a  man  should 


36  LECTUEES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

tell  me  that  physiologists  had  been  all  wrong  in  the 
matter  of  hunger  and  digestion,  and  that  it  had  been 
demonstrated  now  that  hunger  was  an  imaginary  feel- 
ing, and  that  coffee  and  bread  and  butter  acted  more 
through  the  imagination  than  any  other  way ;  that  it 
was  very  well  to  go  through  the  forms  of  taking  them, 
but  that  their  effects  were  really  through  the  imagina- 
tion, and  not  through  any  organic  relation,  —  I  don't 
think  he  would  go  far  to  convince  me.  I  hardly  think  I 
should  be  satisfied  with  any  such  reasoning  as  that. 
If  a  man  should  say  to  me,  "  It  has  been  shown  now 
that  we  have  no  real  knowledge  of  external  things,  we 
have  knowledge  only  of  subjective  states,  the  light 
streaming  from  things  giving  some  idea  of  form  and 
color  and  so  on ;  and  therefore,  if  a  man  would  deal 
with  himself  honestly,  he  could  sit  down  in  a  wilder- 
ness of  sticks  and  call  it  a  garden ;  it  is  merely  sub- 
jective, and  depends  very  much  on  the  man  himself  and 
his  states,"  —  I  don't  think  that  would  change  my  feel- 
ing in  respect  to  flowers,  or  fruits,  or  anything  else. 

Now,  I  know  there  is  in  prayer  a  great  deal  more  than 
question  or  answer.  I  know  there  is  something  beside 
simply  those  questions  about  which  philosophers  are 
pottering.  If  prayer  were  a  mere  order  sent  to  mar- 
ket, expected  to  bring  back  so  much  in  a  basket  every 
time,  I  then  might  enter  into  accounts  and  have  com- 
mercial dealing  on  that  subject.  The  barrenness  of 
prayer  is,  I  am  afraid,  somewhat  exposed  by  the  low 
state  in  which  it  too  often  exists. 

I  do  not  purpose,  either,  to  enter  into  that  other  ques- 
tion, so  profoundly  interesting  and  exciting  to  thou- 
sands of  men,  "  Is  there  any  answer  to  the  prayer  of 


PRAYER.  37 

faith  ? "  I  regard  it  as  one  of  the  questions  of  the  future. 
It  seems  to  me,  if  there  be  anything  that  is  sure,  it  is 
that  Jesus  believed  there  was  a  realm  of  power,  into 
which  the  human  mind  could  rise  up,  which  gave  to  man 
not  only  control  over  himself  and  his  own  spirit,  but 
such  a  participation  in  the  Divine  nature  as  that  his  will 
would  positively  have  control  over  physical  laws  and 
forces.  There  are  powers  repeatedly  promised  or  hinted 
at  in  the  sayings  of  the  Saviour.  There  is  an  exalta- 
tion,—  not  perhaps  to  every  person,  because  all  gifts 
are  not  to  all,  —  but  to  certain  natures  there  are  exalta- 
tions that  carry  with  them  the  nascent  power  of  Divin- 
ity itself,  as  I  believe.  And  the  province  of  answer  to 
prayer  —  or  the  question  whether  men  have  compelling 
power  with  God  —  is  one  of  transcendent  importance. 
I  do  not  intend  to  discuss  that  now,  but  to  look  at 
prayer  simply  in  its  more  generic  features,  and  as  one 
of  the  inspirational  elements  by  which  the  church  is  to 
develop  in  the  community  its  higher  life  and  humanity. 

WHAT   IS   PRAYER? 

And,  looked  at  in  this  largest  view,  what  is  praying  ? 
Dropping  out,  as  we  may  say,  the  lower  elements  of  it, 
what  is  prayer  but  the  conscious  lifting  of  a  man's  soul 
into  the  invisible  realm,  into  the  presence  of  the  invisi- 
ble Father  ?  What  is  it  but  shutting  out  for  the  mo- 
ment, with  the  closing  of  the  eye,  all  conscious  sensu- 
ousness  and  secularity,  and  rising  by  the  effort  of  the 
soul,  through  silence,  up  into  the  region  where  God  sits, 
and  dwelling  —  though  but  for  a  moment  —  out  of  the 
body,  in  the  presence  of  the  Eternal  God  ?  You  may 
say,  when  once  there,  "  He  doth  thus  and  thus  and 


38  LECTUKES   ON  PKEACHING. 

thus  " ;  but  all  the  details  come  back  into  this  generic 
element,  that  it  is  taking  men  out  of  conscious  sensu- 
ousness,  and  lifting  them  up  into  an  actual  spirituality. 
It  is  bringing  them  out  of  time  and  standing  them 
upon  the  threshold  of  the  eternal  world. 

The  habit  of  prayer,  looked  at  in  this  way,  elevates 
the  individual,  elevates  any  household;  it  civilizes, 
spiritualizes,  etherealizes,  the  community  itself. 

And  you  cannot  pray  so  poorly  —  if  your  prayer  be 
sincere  in  that  one  single  thing,  if  it  be  the  real  thought 
that  is  going  up,  and  you  have  the  conception  of  God  in 
your  heart  —  but  that  the  mere  soul-lath  one  gets  in 
things  unseen,  the  mere  lifting  of  the  wings  in  the 
great  beyond,  is  itself  worth  all  that  anybody  ever 
claimed  for  prayer.  And  one  of  the  very  first  things 
that  the  Christian  Church  and  Ministry  should  do  is, 
as  the  Saviour  did,  teach  the  disciples  how  to  pray. 

I  shall  treat,  then,  to-day,  first  of  personal  prayer, 
and  second  of  ministerial  prayer ;  and,  to-morrow  after- 
noon, of  social  prayer,  or  the  prayer-meeting. 

TEACHING  MEN   TO   TRAY. 

Inspiration  of  Desire.  —  As  regards  the  work  of  the 
Christian  ministry  in  teaching  or  inspiring  men  to  pray, 
I  have  to  say,  in  the  first  place,  that  one  of  the  secret 
arts,  —  if  you  use  the  term  "  art "  in  the  sense  of  wis- 
dom, —  one  of  the  subtle,  secret  arts  of  the  ministry  is, 
not  didactically  or  demonstratively  to  make  men  pray, 
but,  by  a  wise  knowledge  of  how  to  teach  them  the 
thought,  the  feeling,  to  inspire  them  with  a  desire  for 
some  such  higher  utterance.  If  a  man  preaches,  there- 
fore, hard  matters  of  fact,  if  he  all  the  time  secularizes 


PRAYER.  39 

his  sermons,  if  they  are  ethicalized  to  death,  if  they  lack 
the  savor  of  the  something  better,  the  something  higher, 
the  something  nobler,  that  is  for  man  in  his  communion 
with  God,  men  will  scarcely  learn  to  pray  except  as 
they  learn  to  perform  any  other  duty.  But  the  secret 
of  praying  is,  to  want  to  pray.  The  secret  of  wanting 
to  pray  is,  to  have  excited  in  our  -souls  certain  aspira- 
tions, certain  yearnings,  certain  desires.  The  conscience 
hungers  and  thirsts,  the  imagination  yearns  and  longs, 
the  affections  rise  above  all  the  bounds  of  ordinary 
experience  in  life. 

Prayerful  Preaching.  —  There  is  the  sense  of  wings, 
I  think,  in  every  soul  that  is  touched  with  the  least 
ideality,  and  it  is  desirable  to  so  preach  to  men  that 
they  shall  have  an  upward  yearning.  Break  up  base 
content.  Infuse  into  men  a  glorious  discontent  with 
things  as  they  are.  So  idealize  everything,  so  preach 
it,  that  the  necessary  things,  common  things,  —  all  of 
them,  —  shall  have  a  halo  about  them,  a  suggestion  of 
something  higher  and  nobler,  till  the  soul  is  in  an  ex- 
halant  state,  till  it  shall  tend  to  pray  always,  —  that  is 
to  say,  to  have  a  subtle  uplifting  and  going  up  of  the 
thoughts,  out  of  the  physical  and  material,  and  the  near 
and  present,  into  the  invisible  and  holy. 

Much  of  this  spirit  of  prayer  can  be  thus  infused, 
wrhile  you  are  not  actually  praying,  through  your  way 
of  dealing  with  men.  It  is  whether  you  are  aiming  at 
the  base  of  their  brain,  where  lies  the  great  workshop  of 
life ;  or  whether  you  are  aiming  at  the  middle  of  their 
brain,  where  the  great  household  and  social  affinities  are 
playing;  or  whether  you  take  the  top,  where  is  the 
holy  spirit,  where  we  touch  God,  if  we  touch  him  at 


40  LECTUKES   ON  PREACHING. 

all,  in  our  thought  and  inward  life.  Now,  sermons  that 
are  constantly  working  upward  into  that,  tending  toward 
that,  although  they  may  never  discuss  prayer,  are  all 
the  time  tending  to  spiritualize  men,  to  give  activity  to 
that  side  of  their  nature  whose  expression  must  neces- 
sarily be  invocation  and  ejaculation. 

But  let  me  say  that,  while  we  are  laying  the  founda- 
tion for  instruction  in  this  way,  I  have  felt  in  my  own 
ministry  the  constant  need  of  doing  a  great  many  other 
things.  To  tell  the  truth,  it  was  a  good  while  after  I 
had  come  into  the  church  that  I  was  like  the  deacon 
who  was  asked  to  pray  by  his  minister  and  refused ; 
and  who,  on  being  told  that  he  had  the  gift  and  ought 
to  pray,  said  he  knew  he  could  do  it,  but  he  always 
hated  to.  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  hated  to  pray ;  it 
used  to  be  a  most  disagreeable,  enforced  duty,  partly 
from  one  reason  and  partly  from  another,  which  it  is 
not  necessary  now  to  specify.  I  remember  that  it  was 
a  long  time  before  I  could  get  back  to  the  habit  of  my 
childhood,  and  kneel  down  and  pray  with  any  comfort. 
The  moment  I  bent  my  knee,  I  also  lost  my  thread ; 
and  the  mechanicalism  of  attempting  to  pray  morning, 
noon,  and  night  would  ruin  my  soul,  I  think.  If  I 
had  to  pray  by  the  clock,  if  I  had  to  have  a  mechan- 
ical order,  it  would  derange  all  my  spiritual  tendencies. 
I  could  not  do  it.  Little  by  little,  I  came  to  the  feeling 
of  wanting  to  commune  with  my  Father ;  and  thus  I 
learned,  after  a  while,  that  we  had  to  go  into  our  con- 
gregation just  as  the  Lord  did.  His  disciples  came  to 
him  and  said,  "  Lord,  teach  us  to  pray." 

Unlearning  Wrong  Ideas.  —  Generally,  the  first  step 
towards  teaching  men  to  pray  is  to  get  them  to  unlearn 


PRAYER.  41 

their  prayers.  Insensibly  they  have  formed  their  idea 
of  what  prayer  is.  It  is  the  way  that  the  minister  prays, 
it  is  the  way  that  their  mother  prayed,  it  is  the  way 
that  holy  men  have  prayed  whose  prayers  are  recorded. 
To  attempt  to  pray  in  that  way  is  worse  than  to  at- 
tempt to  wear  another  man's  clothes,  without  any  regard 
to  size.  It  is  worse  than  the  attempt  of  a  little  child  to 
walk  with  a  stride  as  long  as  the  father's,  whose  hand 
he  holds.  For,  if  there  be  anything  in  this  world  that 
must  be  personal  and  absolutely  genuine  to  you,  it  is  the 
aspiration.  Suppose,  when  I  courted  my  wife,  I  had  got 
down  one  of  the  letters  preserved  in  the  family, — one 
of  my  father's  to  my  mother,  —  and  I  had  sat  down  and 
read  that  to  her  as  a  letter  of  courtship !  It  was  a  very 
good  one,  in  its  time.  But  I  think,  prayer  is  like  the 
powder  that  a  huntsman  uses  ;  he  never  can  use  it  but 
once. 

I  am  speaking  now  of  my  own  views,  and  not  of  the 
views  of  everybody.  There  are  prayers  that  are  like 
stairs,  —  you  begin  at  one  spot  and  you  always  land  at 
another  spot ;  and  persons  say  that  they  were  like  the 
stairs  that  Jacob  saw  in  his  vision,  on  which  angels 
ascended  and  descended,  and  that  it  takes  them  up  to 
heaven.  Such  prayers  are  perfectly  right  for  those  who 
want  them  and  can  use  them.  But  to  my  thought 
prayer  is  wings,  and  a  man  must  go,  not  where  the 
stairs  are  put,  but  just  where  his  own  will  wants  to  go, 
—  to  the  east,  to  the  west,  to  the  north,  to  the  south, 
higher,  lower,  with  many  or  few  strokes,  anywhere,  as 
birds  fly  in  the  summer  heavens  above  us.  And  you 
never  can  fulfill  the  Apostle's  injunctions,  "  Pray  al- 
ways," "Be  instant  in  prayer,"  "Pray  in  season  and  out 


42  LECTUEES   ON  PEEACH1NG. 

of  season,"  —  those  things  cannot  be  done,  if  prayer  is  a 
set  act,  instead  of  an  evolution  of  feeling  or  a  holy  ejac- 
ulation. 

THE  ELEMENTS   OF  PRAYER. 

The  sources  of  prayer  are  like  the  beginnings  of  the 
Ohio  Kiver, —  a  thousand  musical  springs,  separate  one 
from  the  other,  none  of  them  more  than  a  handful,  first 
pouring  out  from  the  rocksides,  and  by  and  by  joining 
together  to  make  the  great  river  below,  on  which  boats 
and  great  steamers  will  float.  And  we  have  the  river 
Prayers,  the  channel  for  accustomed  usages ;  but  the 
beginning  of  prayer,  that  which  is  to  make  the  great 
after-channel  full  always,  and  full  of  good  and  genuine 
prayer,  is  this  solitary  thought,  that  prayerful  emotion, 
this  impulse  of  the  heart.  The  devout  soul,  in  all  its 
ten  thousand  moments,  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is  all 
the  time  exhaling  heavenward  in  poetry,  in  rhapsody,  in 
narration,  in  reverie,  or  in  speech. 

For  prayer  is  not  asking  for  something.  I  have  noth- 
ing to  ask  for,  since  I  have  known  what  God's  Father- 
hood means.  I  have  but  one  petition,  and  that  is,  "  Thy 
will  be  done."  It  is  not  for  me  to  wake  the  sun.  It  is 
not  for  me  to  call  the  summer.  It  is  not  for  me  to  ask 
for  colors  in  the  heavens.  All  these  things  are  abun- 
dantly provided.  The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  full- 
ness thereof;  and  I  am  God's  beloved.  He  died  for  me 
by  his  son  Jesus  Christ.  He  thinks  of  me.  Do  I  ever 
forget  my  children  ?  Shall  a  mother  forget  her  babe, 
cradled  in  her  arms,  by  day  or  by  night  ?  And  shall 
God  forget  us,  in  that  great  rolling  sea  of  his  thoughts, 
in  that  everlasting  fecundity  of  his  love,  in  the  infinite 


PRAYER.  43 

bound  of  the  Divine  tenderness  and  mercy  for  man  ? 
Is  there  anything  left  to  ask  for  ?  When  I  am  tired, 
I  carry  my  weariness  there  and  lay  it  down.  If  I  am 
in  sorrow,  I  am  glad  when  I  think  of  the  Sorrowing 
One.  The  God  of  all  comfort  is  my  God.  When  my 
burden  is  heavy,  it  is  not  so  heavy  as  was  His  cross. 
When  the  world  seems  circumscribed  and  barren,  and 
I  a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim,  the  world  like  a  coach  is 
swinging  on  its  road,  and  soon  I  shall  hear  the  horn 
that  tells  of  its  arrival. 

Ten  thousand  thoughts  of  this  kind,  that  spring  from 
every  side  of  human  experience  and  touch  human  life 
in  every  part, —  these  are  elements  of  prayer.  So  wthat 
when  I  pray, "I  rejoice;  or,  as  the  Apostle  would  say, 
"giving  thanks  in  prayer."  Prayer  is  cheerful  to  me. 
Prayer  is  sweet  to  me ;  it  is  not  ascetic.  I  know  that 
I  am  wicked ;  I  know  that  I  grieve  God ;  I  know  that 
there  are  times  when  it  is  sweet  to  say,  "  God  be  mer- 
ciful to  me  a  sinner ! "  So  there  are  times  for  the  maj- 
esty of  storms  in  summer ;  —  but  thunder-storms  do  not 
march  in  procession  all  the  way  across  the  bosom  of 
the  summer.  There  is  more  brightness  than  darkness ; 
more  tranquil  fruitfulness  than  agitation  and  thunder. 

MAKING  PRAYER  ATTRACTIVE. 

And  now,  if  you  are  going  to  make  the  gate  of  prayer 
strait,  solemn,  awe-inspiring,  for  the  sake  of  making 
people  reverent,  coming  thus  through  their  sensuousness, 
and  trying  that  kind  of  empirical  method  to  excite 
devotion  in  them,  —  if  you  attempt  that,  what  do  you 
do  ?  You  make  prayer  unwelcome,  unlovely.  You  make 
the  soul  not  want  it.  But  if  prayer  is  communion,  if 


44  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

it  is  the  sweetest  of  all  converse,  if  it  includes  in  it 
everything  of  your  experiences,  high  and  low ;  if  the 
children  in  school  or  in  the  household  can  kneel  down 
with  you  and  love  to  look  upon  your  face ;  if  you  can 
make  them  rise  up  from  a  scene  of  prayer  feeling  that, 
after  all,  it  is  "  as  good  as  a  play,"  that  is,  that  there 
is  no  force,  nothing  that  is  angular,  nothing  that  re- 
strains in  it,  but  all  that  is  sweet  and  attractive  and 
joy-breeding,  —  if  you  can  do  that,  you  make  prayer 
lovely,  you  make  men  want  it. 

LIBERTY  IN  PRAYER. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  men  should  pray  a  great 
deal ;  it  is  not  necessary  that  they  should  pray  a  great 
while.  I  think  this  is  ordinarily  one  of  the  faults  of 
prayer.  It  is  one  of  the  faults,  as  I  shall  show  to- 
morrow, of  social  and  of  public  prayer.  Prayers  are 
of  such  a  kind  that  I  do  not  wonder  prayer-meetings 
are  the  lumber-rooms  of  the  church,  that  all  the  things 
that  are  good  for  nothing  else  are  stowed  away  there ! 

We  must  broaden,  then,  and  enrich  our  conception 
of  what  praying  is,  of  the  liberty  of  it,  and  of  the  nat- 
uralness that  there  should  be  in  it,  and  of  the  right  of 
every  man  to  make  his  own  prayer.  "  What  if  I  cannot 
make  one  ?  May  I  not  use  the  forms  ? "  Yes,  just  as 
sick  men  use  crutches,  —  not  to  supersede  and  supplant 
their  legs,  but  to  strengthen  them,  till  they  are  strong 
enough  to  walk  without  crutches. 

But  suppose  a  man  is  unfruitful?  Well,  your  own 
slender  fruitfuluess  of  prayer  is  better  for  you  than  an 
ample  fmitfulness  that  is  somebody  else's.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  prayer  that  is  something  like  the  orna- 


PRAYER.  45 

ments  I  see  in  parties,  where  they  bring  in,  in  a  tub, 
a  tree  to  which  are  tied  oranges  and  orange  blossoms ; 
for  a  night  it  looks  as  though  it  were  an  orange- tree  in 
full  blossom  and  full  fruit,  but  to-morrow  morning  you 
will  see  that  they  were  all  tied  on  overnight.  They 
answered  a  moment's  purpose;  but  one  orange  were 
better,  if  it  actually  grew  there,  than  a  bushel  under 
such  circumstances. 

But  in  helping  your  infirmity —  I  would  not  be  strait- 
laced  in  that  matter.  Help  yourself  by  any  means,  but 
never  forego  liberty,  personal  liberty,  —  never  fold  your 
wings.  Never  pray  by  proxy,  when  you  can  pray  by 
silence  in  your  own  thoughts. 

Now,  to  inspire  this  spirit  of  prayer,  to  make  men 
enjoy  it,  is  a  supreme  art.  I  had  almost  said  that  when 
a  minister  has  the  power  to  inspire  gradually  in  his 
church  a  desire  for  praying,  an  enjoyment  in  prayer, 
his  work  is  comprehensively  done  in  the  world,  and  he 
could  almost  say  "  Let  me  die."  Because  I  think  that 
out  of  this  spirit  of  communion  with  God,  out  of  this 
spirit  of  nearness  to  heaven,  out  of  this  spirit  of  an 
upper  manhood,  out  of  this  spirit  of  the  gloriousness, 
the  joy,  and  the  beauty,  and  the  bounty,  of  the  heavenly 
land  that  just  overhangs  us,  —  out  of  this  comes  almost 
everything  in  the  church  that  has  moral  force  in  it. 

EXALTATION  IN  PRAYER. 

So  much  for  the  attempt  to  teach  your  people  and 
to  inspire  them  with  the  spirit  of  prayer.  The  other 
point,  and  the  only  other  one  that  I  shall  deal  with,  this 
afternoon,  is  your  own  praying  among  your  people.  It 
is  very  difficult  to  speak  on  this  subject,  because  it  is 


46  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

so  much  a  matter  of  constitution ;  so  much  in  the  way 
men  are  organized,  so  much  in  temperament,  so  much 
in  education.  I  think  I  may  say  that  no  part  of  min- 
isterial preparation  is  more  neglected  than  that  of  sing- 
ing and  praying.  We  are  indoctrinated  very  thoroughly, 
we  are  taught  in  the  history  of  the  church,  we  are 
drilled  in  the  order  and  discipline ;  but  how  much  in- 
struction do  we  need  on  the  subject  of  prayer !  I  do 
not  know  that  I  can  give  you  any  instruction  about  it 
except  this,  that  I  think  the  most  sacred  function  of 
the  Christian  ministry  is  praying.  I  can  bear  this  wit- 
ness, that  never  in  the  study,  in  the  most  absorbed 
moments  ;  never  on  the  street,  in  those  chance  inspira- 
tions that  everybody  is  subject  to,  when  I  am  lifted  up 
highest ;  never  in  any  company,  where  friends  are  the 
sweetest  and  dearest,  — never  in  any  circumstances  in  life 
is  there  anything  that  is  to  me  so  touching  as  when  I 
stand,  in  ordinary  good  health,  before  my  great  congre- 
gation to  pray  for  them.  Hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
times,  as  I  rose  to  pray  and  glanced  at  the  congrega- 
tion, I  could  not  keep  back  the  tears.  There  came  to 
my  mind  such  a  sense  of  their  wants,  there  were  so 
many  hidden  sorrows,  there  were  so  many  weights 
and  burdens,  there  were  so  many  doubts,  there  were 
so  many  states  of  weakness,  there  were  so  many 
dangers,  so  many  perils,  there  were  such  histories, — 
not  world  histories,  but  eternal-world  histories,  —  I  had 
such  a  sense  of  compassion  for  them,  my  soul  so  longed 
for  them,  that  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  could  scarcely 
open  my  mouth  to  speak  for  them.  And  when  I 
take  my  people  and  carry  them  before  God  to  plead 
for  them,  I  never  plead  for  myself  as  I  do  for  them,  — 


PRAYER.  47 

I  never  could.  Indeed,  I  sometimes,  as  I  have  said, 
hardly  feel  as  if  I  had  anything  to  ask ;  but  oh,  when 
I  know  what  is  going  on  in  the  heart  of  my  people, 
and  I  am  permitted  to  stand  to  lead  them,  to  inspire 
their  thought  and  feeling,  and  go  into  the  presence  of 
God,  there  is  no  time  that  Jesus  is  so  crowned  with 
glory  as  then !  There  is  no  time  that  I  ever  get  so  far 
into  heaven.  I  can  see  my  mother  there ;  I  see  again 
my  little  children;  I  walk  again,  arm  in  arm,  with 
those  who  have  been  my  companions  and  co-workers. 
I  forget  the  body,  I  live  in  the  spirit;  and  it  seems 
as  if  God  permitted  me  to  lay  my  hand  on  the  very 
Tree  of  Life,  and  to  shake  down  from  it  both  leaves  and 
fruit  for  the  healing  of  my  people !  And  it  is  better 
than  a  sermon,  it  is  better  than  any  exhortation.  He 
that  knows  how  to  pray  for  his  people,  I  had  almost  said, 
need  not  trouble  himself  to  preach  for  them  or  to  them ; 
though  that  is  an  exaggeration,  of  course. 

PERSONAL   HABIT  AND  PUBLIC  DUTY. 

And  now,  my  young  friends,  without  dwelling  longer 
upon  this  matter  of  ministerial  prayer,  for  my  hour  has 
expired,  I  have  only  this  to  say,  —  that  I  think  it  grows 
principally  out  of  the  habit  of  prayer  in  your  own  souls. 
Some  people  have  asked  me,  "  Do  you  ever  write  your 
prayers  ? "  Why,  I  had  rather  undertake  to  make  a  dia- 
gram for  every  particle  of  my  blood,  what  it  should  do 
all  day,  than  to  attempt  to  sketch  out  a  prayer.  Prayers 
are  as  flowers  that  scatter  themselves  all  the  hillsides 
over,  and  all  the  valleys  through,  according  to  the 
will  of  the  shining  sun  that  draws  them  up  toward  it. 
Prayer  must  be  spontaneous,  voluntary,  effluent  as  the 


48  LECTURES   ON   PEEACHING. 

atmosphere  itself.  It  comes  to  those  who  pray  much, — 
I  do  not  mean  those  that  spend  a  great  deal  of  time  in 
the  closet,  because  you  can  while  away  a  great  many 
pleasant  hours  over  dull  books  with  interjectional 
prayers ;  but  those  who  have  thoughts  that  rise  spon- 
taneously up  to  God,  —  for  that  is  prayer.  I  have 
friends  who  are  so  dear  to  me  that  I  hardly  ever  go 
a  whole  day  unconscious  of  them.  And  sometimes,  for 
hours  together,  I  couple  very  much  of  my  personal  his- 
tory with  theirs.  Have  you  never  had  friends  that 
were  so  dear  to  you  that,  though  they  were  a  thousand 
miles  away,  you  talked  with  them  in  the  room,  and,  if 
you  had  a  picture,  there  were  two  pairs  of  eyes  looking 
at  it,  not  one  ?  Have  you  ever  carried  on  this  kind  of 
double  existence  with  friends  ?  Well,  it  seems  to  me 
that  is  the  attitude  of  the  soul  that  loves  God,  —  that 
knows  itself  to  be  his,  that  expects  to  dwell  with  God, 
that  does  not  think  of  him  as  a  great  judge,  or  as  a  des- 
pot, but  as  the  sweetest,  most  genial,  most  affable,  the 
nearest,  the  noblest,  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  to  be 
desired,  the  altogether  lovely ;  the  one  that  made  the 
sense  of  beauty  in  me,  and  is  infinitely  more  fond  of 
beauty  than  I  am;  the  one  that  touched  in  me  the 
fountain  of  poetic  feeling,  and  is  himself  transcendently 
more  poetic  than  all  that  ever  sung  on  earth ;  the  one 
who  is  the  fountain  out  of  which  sprang  everything 
that  we  love,  or  revere,  or  desire  here !  If  such  be  our 
thought  of  God,  and  our  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God 
every  day,  it  is  out  of  that  fountain  that  comes  pulpit 
prayer. 


PKAYEK.  49 


PRAYER  THE   SECRET  OF  STRENGTH. 

And  if  you  pray  in  the  pulpit,  and  are  dry,  do  not  be 
discouraged.  All  streams  run  small  at  first,  but  grow 
better,  grow  deeper.  Take  more  care  of  the  inward 
man.  Be  nobler.  Oh,  you  have  to  be  good  men,  you 
have  to  be  noble  men,  more  generous,  more  disinter- 
ested than  anybody  else  about  you  !  Sermons  will 
not  do ;  it  is  life  God  wants  to  bless,  and  it  is  your 
life,  if  you  are  settled  in  any  parish,  that  God  will 
make  the  means  of  grace  to  men.  And  you  have  to 
live  lives  of  holiness,  not  after  the  Madame  Guyon 
sort,  or  any  particular  sort,  but  after  your  sort,  which  is 
the  purity  of  heart  and  the  simplicity  of  faith  and  the 
freedom  of  will,  ascending  toward  God.  Live  in  that, 
grow  in  that,  deepen  in  that,  and  people  will  begin  to 
say,  "  Our  minister's  prayers,  it  seems  to  me,  are  more 
nourishing  than  they  used  to  be."  Then,  when  men 
vex  you  and  trouble  you,  instead  of  getting  angry,  pray. 
Then,  when  troubles  come,  instead  of  feeling  that  you 
have  too  much  trouble,  pray  and  pray.  When  you  find 
that  talebearers  in  the  community  are  after  you,  and 
you  are  annoyed  and  vexed  in  your  parish,  and  there  is 
scandal  going  around  you  here  and  there,  pray,  pray ! 
It  is  the  best  way  to  head  off  little  troubles.  It  is  the 
best  way  to  lighten  great  burdens.  Pray  always,  be 
instant  in  prayer.  Pray  deep,  deep  as  your  soul  goes, 
high  as  your  thoughts  can  rise,  and  then  you  need  not 
take  much  more  trouble  about  your  pulpit  prayers,  — 
they  will  come.  And  when  I  hear  a  parish  say,  "  Our 
minister  may  not  preach  as  well  as  others,  but  oh,  it 
is  a  balm  and  a  refreshment  to  hear  him  pray ! "  I 

VOL.  n.  3  » 


50  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

congratulate  them,  they  are  not  far  from  the  gate  of 
heaven. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  "Would  it  not  be  well  for  the  congregation  to  be  made  to  feel 
that  they  are  expected  to  join  in  the  prayer  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  suppose  that  when  a  man  stands 
before  his  congregation  he  feels  joined  to  them.  I  am 
conscious  of  that  myself.  I  seem  almost  to  pass  into 
my  congregation.  I  feel  as  if  we  were  all  one,  as  if 
my  utterance  were  the  utterance  and  the  voice  of  all 
the  sympathetic  souls  in  the  congregation.  A  great 
many  say,  "  Let  us  pray,"  I  suppose,  because  they  have 
got  to  open  the  door  somehow,  and  that  is  the  way  it 
has  been  customary  to  open  it. 

Q.  May  a  person  be  eloquent  in  prayer  without  a  vivid  imagi- 
nation ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  think  that  all  prayer  has  imagina- 
tion in  it.  I  think  that  faith  is  spiritualized  imagi- 
nation. Faith  that  works  by  love  is  ideality,  or  the 
imagination  joined  with  affection  and  working  in  a 
spiritual  direction ;  so  that  all  sense  of  God,  all  sense  of 
invisible  things,  means  imagination.  But  the  imagina- 
tion, like  every  other  thing,  may  exist  in  different 
degrees.  It  may  be  strong  enough  simply  to  be  recip- 
ient, or  it  may  be  strong  enough  to  be  both  recipient 
and  in  a  small  degree  creative,  or  it  may  be  positively 
creative,  or  efflorescent.  The  last  form  gives  the  high- 
est development  of  it,  carries  one  into  the  very  borders 
of  what  we  call  genius  in  that  matter.  I  think  there  is 
a  genius  of  prayer  just  as  much  as  of  poetry.  I  knew 
a  woman  so  illiterate  that  she  could  not  talk  better 


PRAYER.  51 

than  a  common  negro.  She  came  from  the  South, 
though  she  was  a  white  woman,  and  lived  in  one  of  the 
southern  counties  of  Ohio.-  When  she  began  to  pray, 
after  a  very  little  her  spirit  came  to  her ;  she  seemed 
to  drop  the  mortal  part,  and  she  fell  into  the  language 
of  the  Old  Testament.  I  heard  Judge  Fishback,  now 
gone,  say  that  he  had  heard  all  the  able  men  in  the 
West,  but  he  never  heard  a  human  being  who  had  such 
power,  who  affected  him  as  that  poor  ignorant  woman 
did,  when  she  got  into  those  higher  moods,  and  brought 
to  her  second  or  higher  nature  the  use  of  all  that  sub- 
lime language  of  the  Old  Testament  that  seemed  to  be 
the  channel  to  her  spiritual  feeling.  I  have  heard  old 
negroes  in  Indianapolis  pray  so  as  to  make  me  wish  I 
was  in  their  place.  There  is  a  genius  for  prayer ;  but 
then  it  is  just  as  it  is  with  the  element  of  beauty.  The 
highest  development  of  beauty  makes  you  an  artist ; 
then  you  go  along  down  until  you  come  to  that  devel- 
opment in  men  which  makes  them  decorators ;  and 
then  lower  down,  to  the  great  average  mass  of  men  who 
simply  have  a  sense  of  what  is  tasteful  or  beautiful.  A 
sense  of  beauty  is  distributed  from  the  top  to  the  bottom, 
though  in  different  degrees ;  and  the  power  of  prayer 
follows  the  line  of  the  gift.  The  gift  is  great  in  some ; 
it  belongs  to  all,  but  in  varying  degrees  ;  and  is  suscep- 
tible, like  all  other  gifts,  of  development  by  use. 

Q.  Some  men  do  not  have  the  power  of  expression,  —  of  word 
expression.  Now,  what  do  you  think  of  that  yearning  that  there 
is  in  the  Congregational  Church  —  I  do  not  say  whether  it  is 
right  or  wrong  —  for  something  like  a  liturgy  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  should  say  that  that  ought  to  be 
met  by  hymns.  I  shall  come  to  that  in  my  lecture  on 


52  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

music.  There  are  no  such  prayers  on  earth  put  into 
form  in  liturgies  as  those  that  have  been  put  into 
hymns.  The  trouble  is  that  nobody  thinks  a  hymn  is 
a  prayer.  When  a  prayer  is  being  made  in  the  form  of 
a  hymn,  —  in  which  the  music  gives  it  wings  indeed,  — 
people  think  that  is  the  time  to  scratch  their  head,  the 
time  to  stand  up  and  look  about,  or  to  sit  still  and  take 
it  easy,  the  time  to  hoist  the  window  and  get  a  little 
more  air,  the  time  to  look  after  their  hat,  the  time  for 
the  sexton  to  go  with  a  whisper  around  the  house.  The 
desecration  of  prayer  in  hymns  is  something  perfectly 
shocking ! 

The  Congregational  Liturgy  is  in  the  Hymn-Book,  I 
think.  Where  fifty  men  want  a  liturgy,  there  is  no  law 
that  I  know  of  in  heaven  or  on  earth  to  prevent  their 
having  one.  It  is  the  liberty  of  the  Congregational 
Church.  But  I  believe  there  is  one  already  made.  It 
is  said  that  liturgies  must  grow,  they  cannot  be  built ; 
and  this  liturgy  has  grown.  From  the  time  of  Daviil  to 
the  time  of  Wesley,  and  on  down  to  our  day,  God  has 
been  inspiring  men ;  and  they  have  given  forth  their 
divine  utterances  in  psalms  and  hymns  and  sacred 
songs.  A  wise  use  of  the  Hymn-Book  will  develop 
more  liturgical  effect,  I  think,  than  can  be  got  in  any 
other  possible  way. 


III. 


THE  PEAYEE-MEETINGl :  ITS  METHODS  AND 
BENEFITS. 

SUPPOSE  there  is  hardly  any  other  part  of 
church  service  that  is  regarded  with  so  little 
estimation  in  the  community  at  large  as  the 
prayer-meeting.  And  I  think  facts  will 
bear  me  out  in  saying  that  this  feeling  is  participated 
in  by  the  church,  on  the  part  of  the  greatest  number  of 
its  members,  nine  out  of  ten  of  whom  look  upon  it  as 
perhaps  a  duty,  but  almost  never  a  pleasure.  It  is  a 
"  means  of  grace  " ;  and  they  feel  about  it  as  I  did  when 
I  was  a  boy  about  being  washed  in  the  morning  and 
having  my  hair  combed.  It  was  better  than  going  in- 
decent ;  but  it  was  an  exercise  that  I  never  enjoyed,  and 
I  was  heartily  glad  when  it  was  over.  In  most  churches 
I  think  that  is  the  feeling  in  regard  to  the  prayer-meet- 
ing ;  that  it  is  dull ;  that  it  is  for  the  most  part  without 
edification ;  that  in  some  mysterious  way  it  may  be 
blessed  to  the  soul's  good,  —  but  how  they  do  not  know. 
Persons  resort  to  it  when  they  cannot  very  well  help  it. 
Now  and  then  the  meeting  blazes  up ;  there  is  a  revival ; 
there  is  st>me  novelty ;  something  has  transpired  that 


54  LECTURES   ON   PREACHING. 

excites  a  momentary  interest ;  but  perhaps  ten  months 
in  the  year,  on  an  average,  the  prayer-meeting  is  es- 
chewed by  the  great  body  of  the  church,  and  by  the 
community  wholly. 

There  is  another  bad  side  to  it,  —  children  do  not  like 
it ;  and  anything  that  children  dislike  in  religious 
service,  habitually  and  universally,  has  reason  to  sus- 
pect itself.  There  is  an  element  in  true  religion  that 
follows  the  example  of  Christ,  —  the  children  wanted 
to  come,  and  the  Saviour  called  them  and  put  his  arms 
around  them,  took  them  upon  his  knee,  and  laid  his 
hands  on  them  and  blessed  them.  And,  from  that  day 
to  this,  I  think  that  where  service  is  delivered  in  the 
true  Christ-spirit  it  will  be  found  that,  in  one  place  or 
another,  there  is  something  for  children ;  and  the  chil- 
dren will  find  it  out.  Where  the  minister  does  not  inter- 
est the  children,  where  the  meetings  of  the  church  have 
nothing  for  the  children,  something  ought  to  be  changed 
or  added.  Eevision  is  needed. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC   THEORY. 

Now,  it  is  notorious  that  the  prayer-meeting  is  "  below 
par,"  and  therefore  it  may  be  the  more  striking  to  say 
that,  for  my  part,  I  regard  it  as  the  very  center  and 
heart  of  church  life,  —  not  necessarily  of  preaching ;  al- 
though its  reaction  upon  preaching  may  be  made  to  be 
very  great.'  We  have  thrown  off  hierarchical  methods 
of  worship ;  we  have  advanced  —  I  mean  the  Presby- 
terian and  Congregational  Churches  and  their  confreres 
have  advanced  —  the  theory  of  the  equality  of  the  church 
in  its  members;  the  idea  that  it  is  a  family  and  body 
of  believers ;  that  it  has  in  itself  inherently  the  gifts 


THE  PKAYEE-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      55 

of  divination ;  that  it  does  not  derive  its  graces  through 
any  ministerial  channel  except  reason  and  the  ordinary 
methods  of  communication.  This  is  our  theory.  And 
it  behooves,  therefore,  all  those  that  believe  in  such  a 
constitution  of  the  church,  to  see  to  it  that  the  church 
does  develop  some  fruit  that  shall  sustain  the  theory. 
If,  therefore,  the  church  life  is  barren,  if  it  is  meager 
in  development,  we  lay  ourselves  under  a  just  lia- 
bility of  being  thought  to  disprove,  by  our  life,  that 
which  we  attempt  to  prove  by  our  philosophy  or  by 
our  reasoning. 

POWER  OF  INDIVIDUAL  EXPEEEENCES. 

If  there  is  anything  in  the  world  that  ought  to  de- 
velop church  life,  it  is  the  gathering  together  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  brotherhood,  the  men  and  the  women 
in  the  church,  for  mutual  edification.  Do  you  not  be- 
lieve that  there  is  a  constant  communication  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  with  every  heart  that  is  striving  God-ward, — 
yea,  and  every  one  that  is  not  ?  Do  you  not  believe 
that  every  heart  that  has  been  made  willing  in  the  day 
of  God's  power,  that  is  in  a  recipient  state,  is  receiving 
from  day  to  day  a  realization  of  the  Divine  presence, 
an  inspiration  in  duties  ?  Is  there  not  a  life  going  on 
in  the  hearts  of  God's  own  people,  under  all  the  varied 
conditions  in  which  they  are  living,  that  is  worth  some 
record,  some  interpretation  ?  And  is  it  possible  that 
one  man,  no  matter  how  studious,  no  matter  how  gifted, 
—  is  it  conformable  to  our  idea  of  the  constitution  of 
the  church  that  one  man,  standing  in  the  pulpit,  shall  be 
able,  simply  because  he  devotes  himself  -to  instruction, 
to  pour  out  upon  a  congregation  such  knowledge  of 


56  LECTIJEES   ON  PKEACHING. 

experimental  truth  as  inheres  in  the  life  of  the  congre- 
gation itself  ?  If  there  were  any  process  by  which  we 
could  look  inside  of  men's  lives,  their  unconscious  as 
well  as  their  conscious  religious  life ;  if  we  could  fol- 
low the  mother  in  all  her  moods  and  musings  and 
prayers  and  anxieties,  and  all  the  methods  by  which 
she  is  lifted  out  of  and  over,  and  carried  victorious 
through,  any  discouragements  and  trials  in  the  rearing 
of  her  little  church,  the  household ;  if  we  could  go 
with  those  that  are  discouraged  and  downhearted  and 
not  naturally  hopeful,  whom  all  the  world  seems  to  beat 
against  and  to  crush,  and  see  how  their  feebleness  and 
weakness  is  from  day  to  day  helped  and  sustained ;  if 
we  could  gather  out  all  that  which  the  young  feel  in 
their  weary  moments ;  if  we  could  see  how  men  strive 
under  temptations,  against  pride ;  how  men  that  are 
borne  in  upon  in  the  business  of  life  strive  against 
avarice ;  what  battle  is  going  on  in  the  shop,  in  the 
street,  and  wherever  men  are;  what  the  whole  round 
of  real,  practical  godliness  is,  in  its  weakness,  its  over- 
throw and  defeat,  in  its  matched  battle  or  in  its  vic- 
tories,—  if  we  could  gather  out  all  these  things  and 
bring  them  into  some  form  and  lay  them  open,  do  you 
believe  there  is  a  single  man  on  earth,  though  he  were 
a  prophet  or  an  apostle,  or  both,  that  could  equal  the 
revelation  of  the  truth  of  God  as  thus  given  in  the 
lives  and  history  of  all  the  members  of  the  church? 
The  great  and  wonderful  work  going  on  in  the 
lowest  and  the  least  is  more  stupendous  in  its  re- 
lations to  the  Godhead  and  the  eternal  estate  of  the 
blest  than  the  external  greatness  of  any  kingdom  in 
the  world  !  And  it  is  all  the  time  stimulated  and  de- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      57 

veloped.  Here  is  the  growth  of  passions ;  here  is  the 
growth  of  moral  emotions ;  here  is  the  dawn  of  love, 
waxing  stronger  and  stronger  unto  the  perfect  day; 
here  are  the  joys,  the  sorrows,  the  upliftings,  the 
downcastings, —  all  the  ten  thousand  things  which  not 
only  teach  us  to  pray,  but  which  pray  in  us  and 
through  us,  "  with  groanings  which  cannot  be  uttered." 
Is  there  any  voice  for  these  things,  except  as  we  gather 
up  here  and  there  a  scrap  from  the  congregation  and 
make  it  known  ?  Now,  the  ideal  prayer  is  this  voice 
of  the  church,  telling  what  it  has  learned  of  God  in 
its  daily  conflict,  bringing  out  the  whole  of  that  great 
range  of  Christian  work  that  is  going  on  in  any  com- 
munity where  there  is  a  true  church  of  Christ.  For,  as 
the  Apostles  were  called  to  testify  that  they  had  seen 
Jesus,  and  that  he  was  raised  from  the  dead,  so  the 
Church  should  testify  that  Christ  is  raised  in  them  from 
the  dead,  and  tell  what  he  is  doing  by  his  work  in  them. 

THE  VOICE   OF  THE   CHURCH. 

Now,  I  hold,  in  the  first  place,  that,  according  to 
our  idea  of  it,  there  can  hardly  be  a  prayer-meeting 
in  a  hierarchical  church  ;  because  there  can  be  no  such 
thing,  as  we  understand  it,  where  one  man  is  the  chan- 
nel through  which  the  church  worships,  and  through 
which  alone  God  speaks  to  the  church.  But  the  prayer- 
meeting  is  the  voice  of  the  church  and  of  all  its 
members.  It  belongs  to  our  peculiar  organization,  and 
it  can  scarcely  be  in  any  other  system.  Instead  of 
developing  or  encouraging  it,  many  of  our  churches  are 
asking,  "  Can't  we  help  our  leanness  and  our  barren- 
ness with  a  liturgy  ? "  I  do  not  object  to  a  liturgy 

3* 


58  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

more  than  I  do  to  banners  on  a  house,  if  it  pleases 
men ;  but  I  would  not  regard  it  as  the  indispensable 
method,  not  as  something  that  we  need,  until  we  have 
exhausted  that  which  belongs  to  us,  namely,  the  power 
that  inheres  in  the  very  radical  idea  of  a  church  among 
us,  that  God  communicates  with  every  heart,  not  me- 
diatorially,  —  by  earthly  mediation,  —  but  by  direct  im- 
pact, by  direct  soul-piercing ;  that  he  thinks  into  men, 
and  that  their  thoughts  are  the  rebound  of  his ;  that 
he  pierces  them  with  divine  emotion;  and  as,  when  the 
sun  pierces  the  earth,  up  spring  flowers  and  out  burst 
fruits,  so,  when  the  soul  feels  the  Divine  inshining,  all 
that  is  noble  in  it  rises  efflorescent  and  victorious. 

And  when  you  shall  have  developed  that  in  the 
church,  if  still  you  complain  of  leanness,  and  want  of 
interest,  and  barrenness,  then  bring  in  a  liturgy,  then 
bring  in  some  other  thing ;  though  I  think  the  com- 
bination of  a  liturgy  with  Congregationalism  is  the 
mingling  of  foreign  elements  that  do  not  go  well  to- 
gether. It  is  a  patch  on  the  old  garment ;  one  or  the 
other  tears,  —  and  it  does  n't  make  any  difference 
which;  there  is  a  hole. 

This  being  the  general  idea  of  a  prayer-meeting,  you 
will  not  have  to  go  far  to  see  what  are  some  of  its 
advantages  and  what  are  some  of  its  hindrances.  Of 
these  things  I  shall  speak  to  you  plainly.  And  mostly 
I  speak  from  my  own  observation  and  experience. 
The  ideal  of  the  prayer-meeting,  then,  is  a  family  meet- 
ing, —  a  household  coming  together  and  telling,  all  of 
them  from  time  to  time,  what  God  hath  done  for  them ; 
helped  to  do  it  by  the  discriminating  leadership  of 
whoever  presides  in  the  meeting,  by  questions,  by  vari- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:   ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      59 

ous  methods,  calling  attention  to  things  that  otherwise 
escape  the  notice  of  brethren,  and  bringing  out  the  full 
record  of  the  dealings  of  God  with  his  household,  that 
church. 

THE  PRAYER-MEETING  PROMOTES  FELLOWSHIP. 

In  the  first  place,  it  produces,  or  tends  to  produce,  the 
almost  unknown  quality  of  which  so  much  is  said  in 
the  New  Testament  and  so  little  known  in  the  church, 
— fellowship ;  a  sort  of  joyful  inspiration  at  the  sense 
of  a  "  fellow "  by  your  side,  that  kind  of  relation  one 
to  another  which  persons  have  who  are  met  as  on 
Thanksgiving  day,  or  on  Christmas,  when  a  family 
comes  together.  Everybody  is  glad,  and  nobody  can 
tell  why,  except  that  It  is  my  brother,  it  is  my  sister, 
it  is  my  father  or  my  mother,  my  uncle,  my  aunt,  my 
grandfather.  It  is  that  feeling  of  heart-exultation, 
that  overflow  of  gladness ;  and  persons  run  around 
and  laugh.  "Why  do  you  laugh?"  "Well,  because 
I  feel  so  happy ! "  Now,  gather  a  church  together ; 
bring  them  into  such  relations  with  each  other  that 
they  all  feel  that  yearning,  that  fraternal  feeling,  that 
gladness,  that  exultation  in  each  other.  Ah !  you 
never  can  do  this  as  long  as  you  seat  people  apart  in 
pews,  set  them  up  straight,  and  make  it  a  sin  for  them 
to  look  at  one  another,  telling  them  to  think  with  awe 
about  holiness,  driving  them  up  out  of  the  sphere  of 
ordinary  feeling.  They  may  come  in  very  properly, 
put  their  hats  down  very  properly,  sit  properly,  and 
nobody  speak  above  a  whisper,  but  you  cannot  pro- 
duce the  feeling  of  fellowship  so.  But  there  is  a 
genial  and  social  element,  a  loving  element,  if  men 


60  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

know  each  other,  —  as  they  will  come  to  do,  —  out  of 
which  fellowship  will  grow. 

IT  DISCOURAGES   CENSORIOUS  JUDGMENT. 

And  after  a  little  while  this  kills  uncharitableness. 
There  is  not  a  man  living,  with  any  grace  in  his  soul, 
who  does  not  feel  a  yearning  toward  another  that  has 
done  wrong,  and  owns  it,  and  endeavors  to  get  over  it. 
Do  you  know  why  it  is  that  we  feel  so  toward  that 
old  church-member,  forty  years  a  member,  and  still 
so  stingy  and  so  proud,  —  why  we  all  look  askance 
at  him  ?  It  is  because  he  does  not  feel  that  he 
is  sinful;  it  is  because  he  does  not  feel  that  he  is 
proud  or  avaricious.  But  if  he  had  come  into  the 
house  of  God  among*liis  brethren,  and  with  the  sim- 
plicity of  a  child  said,  "Brethren,  you  know  my 
weakness,  but  you  do  not  know  how  I  have  struggled 
against  it" ;  and  if  you  had  heard  him  in  his  prayers 
ask  that  God  would  deliver  him  from  avarice ;  and  if 
he  had  talked  with  the  young  people  in  the  church, 
saying,  "  Now  look  at  my  example ;  I  am  trying  to 
fight  against  it,  but  don't  you  get  into  any  such  course 
as  that,"  —  you  would  feel  a  sympathy  for  him.  Your 
fellow-feeling  for  him  would  soften  your  judgment  of 
him.  Another  man  is  naturally  a  peacock,  who  spreads 
himself,  and  who  is  full  of  the  glistening  reflections  of 
other  people's  brilliance ;  he  is  laughed  at,  and  people 
pick  him  to  pieces, — for  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  joy- 
ous cannibalism  in  a  right  Christian  church,  —  and  they 
are  all  pulling  the  feathers  out  of  him  !  But  suppose 
that  man  in  the  gathering  household,  not  ostentatiously, 
not  going  around  as  a  professional  experience  -  teller, 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:   ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      61 

should  at  his  proper  time  and  place,  and  with,  evident 
sincerity  of  feeling,  confess,  "  This  is  my  disposition ; 
my  brethren  have  spoken  to  me  about  it,  but  they  do 
not  need  to ;  I  know  it ;  it  has  been  revealed  to  me 
in  a  thousand  ways;  and  I  do  not  like  it,  I  strive 
against  it,"  —  you  that  are  meek  should  help  to  restore 
such  a  one.  Suppose  you  think,  "  That  man  knows  it 
just  as  well  as  we  do."  Did  you  ever  see  'a  brother 
that  would  point  at  his  younger  brother  and  say, 
"  That  fellow,  you  know,  has  got  a  club-foot "  ?  We 
never  ridicule  the  infirmities  of  our  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, and  certainly  not  those  of  our  children.  They  ap- 
peal to  our  compassion,  as  should  the  constitutional 
moral  peculiarities  of  men,  especially  if  they  have  been 
developed  and  exaggerated  in  the  world. 

What  we  want  more  than  anything  else  in  this 
world  is,  that  men  who  would  go  to  the  stake  for  the 
doctrine  of  total  depravity  shall  admit  that  they  have 
some  of  it  themselves,  and  that  they  are  making  a 
brave  fight  to  overcome  it.  It  is  wonderful  what  a 
grace  there  is  in  sympathy.  God  blesses  it  in  a  great 
many  ways.  And  if  in  the  church  there  were  such  a 
thing,  if  you  could  by  judicious  ministration  here,  or  by 
gifts  there,  or  by  both,  bring  brethren  really  to  speak  of 
that  which  is  going  on  in  their  own  lives,  it  would  be  a 
great  help  to  them  and  to  others  ;  it  would  create  and 
foster  the  true  feeling  of  fellowship  in  the  church  house- 
hold, and  allay  harsh  judgments  and  uncharitableness. 

IT   CHERISHES  MUTUAL  HELPFULNESS. 

Now,  when  we  are  saying  that  there  are  a  thousand 
sweets  while  we  are  on  the  journey  to  Canaan,  we  are 


62  LECTUEES   ON  PREACHING. 

always  thinking  of  poetical  sweets.  But  the  journey 
lies  in  men ;  it  lies  in  your  pride,  your  laziness,  your 
envy,  your  jealousy,  your  passions ;  in  one  or  another 
form  of  human  weakness,  —  there  is  where  the  jour- 
ney is,  and  where  the  work  of  God  is  going  on.  Why 
should  not  men  be  trained  to  make  with  sufficient 
frankness,  not  indelicate  disclosures,  but  a  proper  and 
just  reference  to  these  things  among  brethren  for  one 
another's  sympathy  and  helpfulness  ?  If  you  had  rea- 
son to  think  that  your  brethren  were  manfully  striv- 
ing to  overcome  their  faults,  I  do  not  believe  you 
would  ever  meet  them  without  wanting  to  put  your 
arms  about  them.  I  know  persons  whom  I  never  go 
past  without  feeling  that  I  would  like  to  lay  my  hand 
on  their  head  and  bless  them.  Yet  they  are  some  of 
them  wretchedly  imperfect.  But  they  are  genuine, 
they  are  sincere  and  earnest  in  their  Christian  en- 
deavors. 

IT  DISCOVERS   MUTUAL  NEEDS. 

Fellowship  can  hardly  be  developed  by  any  fanci- 
ful measures,  —  fellowship  of  men  as  Christians.  You 
can  fellowship  ;  oh  yes.  If  ye  salute  those  that  salute 
you,  what  thank  have  ye  ?  If  ye  do  good  to  those  who 
do  good  to  you,  what  do  ye  more  than  the  publicans  or 
the  Pharisees  ?  If  you  like  folks  that  are  likable,  why 
not  ?  That  is  all  down  hill.  You  like  this  one  because 
he  is  a  clean,  round,  splendid  fellow,  and  interests  you. 
That  is  all  well  enough ;  of  course  you  like  him.  But 
how  is  it  with  the  scrawny  folks  ?  How  is  it  about  the 
people  that  do  not  interest  you  ?  Do  you  like  them  ? 
Don't  you  go  about  picking  up  elective  affinities  or  spir- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      63 

itual  affinities,  getting  your  companionship  here  and 
there  ?  Don't  you  go  to  the  table  and  take  everything 
that  has  sugar  on  it,  letting  all  the  plain  things  go  ? 
Get  hold  of  men  because  they  need  you.  You  should 
fellowship  with  men,  not  because  they  have  intellectual 
treasure  and  genius,  and  make  the  hours  so  golden  for 
you,  but  because,  like  you,  they  are  sons  of  God,  and 
fight,  like  you,  in  the  same  battle.  Soldiers  in  the  field 
have  what  they  call  battle-companions,  — pledged  to  mu- 
tual helpfulness  and  ministration  ;  if  one  is  wounded 
or  falls,  the  other  assists  him  or  cares  for  him.  They 
go  into  the  fight  with  these  understandings.  Have  we 
any  such  thing  in  the  church  ?  Yet  there  never  was  a 
severer  battle  than  that  which  is  going  on  all  the  time 
in  the  church,  where  the  heart  is  touched  with  Divine 
aspiration,  and  is  struggling  against  the  temptations  of 
the  world.  The  church  should  be  trained  to  the  disclos- 
ure of  individual  needs  and  trials  in  the  prayer-meeting, 
so  that  those  needs  maybe  met.  It  is  part  of  the  min- 
ister's business  to  so  train  it.  There  are  a  great  many 
books  which  you  never  have  read,  and,  luckily,  never 
will  read ;  but  there  are  other  books  that  are  written 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  page  after  page ;  there  are  books,  the 
reading  of  which  would  make  you  a  thousand-fold  wiser 
than  books  written  by  the  greatest  human  authors,  — 
what  God  is  doing  in  silent  souls.  You  ought  to  find 
it  out,  and  I  think  the  prayer-meeting  is  the  place  to 
find  it.  No  man  will  answer  the  true  ideal  of  a  minis- 
ter, who,  having  a  church,  does  not  have  a  prayer-meet- 
ing, and  who,  in  the  prayer-meeting,  does  not  try  to  find 
out  what  is  going  on  with  his  people  by  this  kind  of 
disclosure. 


64  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


IT  DEVELOPS  POWER  IN  THE  CONGREGATION. 

This  serves  as  a  counterpart  and  a  counterbalance  to 
the  pulpit  itself.  In  most  churches,  the  pulpit  is  apt 
to  be  a  lectureship.  The  minister  goes  there,  and  what 
does  he  do  ?  He  gives  out  a  hymn ;  it  is  sung  by  the 
choir,  and  the  congregation  hear  it.  He  reads  the  Bible, 
and  they  hear  it.  He  leads  in  prayer,  and  they  hear  it. 
He  preaches,  and  they  hear  it,  —  those  of  them  that  are 
awake.  He  gives  out  another  hymn,  and  they  hear  it 
and  go  home,  and  that  is  the  end  of  it.  What  have 
they  done  ?  They  have  been  recipients ;  everything 
has  been  done  for  them,  upon  them,  to  them.  They 
have  done  nothing.  There  ought  to  be  a  counterbal- 
ance to  this.  This  is  putting  all  the  power  into  the 
pulpit.  But  one  of  the  things  that  should  measure  the 
power  of  the  pulpit  is  the  magnitude  of  the  living  power 
which  it  develops  among  the  congregation.  If  a  min- 
ister goes  into  a  church  which  is  all  pulpit,  and  stays 
ten  or  twenty  years,  and  goes  out  of  it  and  it  is  all  pul- 
pit still,  while  he  may  have  done  a  good  many  things, 
there  is  one  which  he  has  not  done,  —  to  his  discredit ! 
He  has  not  developed  the  church  power  as  distinguished 
from  the  pulpit  power,  —  the  brotherhood. 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  a  noble  father  and  mother ; 
but  one  of  the  things  that  noble  fathers  and  mothers 
must  do  is  to  bring  up  their  children  so  that,  as  they 
come  one  after  another  up  to  manhood  and  are  turned 
off,  they  too  are  noble.  And  it  is  through  these  minor 
meetings,  where  you  get  close  to  men,  and  convention- 
alities are  broken  down,  and  intimacies  are  established 
upon  other  grounds  than  those  that  rule  in  social  life, 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      65 

that  this  work  is  to  be  done,  if  it  is  to  be  done  any- 
where. 

IT  DISCLOSES   GIFTS  AND   GRACES. 

Then,  the  prayer-meeting  does  another  thing ;  it  de- 
velops the  gifts  that  are  in  the  church.  There  are 
gifts  that  lie  hidden, —  the  possessors  themselves  don't 
know  of  their  existence.  There  are  men  who  have 
received  no  culture,  and  yet  have  great  good  sense. 
There  are  men  who  have  had  no  opportunity  for  learn- 
ing the  art  of  expression,  who,  nevertheless,  have  that 
discrimination,  that  balance,  that  insight,  which  consti- 
tute tact.  They  have  comprehensive  judgments  of  men 
and  things.  They  are  able  to  manage  their  fellow-men 
out  of  doors,  to  control  business  and  carry  it  on,  under  a 
thousand  inequalities,  successfully  to  an  end.  But  they 
are  not  supposed  to  have  any  gifts  in  the  church,  be- 
cause they  never  volunteer,  they  do  not  say  anything. 
The  idea  largely  prevails,  that,  if  men  speak  in  meeting, 
they  must  speak  expositorily,  or  hortatorily,  both  of 
which  things  I  think  to  be  hindrances  in  prayer-meet- 
ings. Of  hortatoriness,  I  shall  speak  in  a  moment.  It 
is  the  ~bete  noire  of  prayer-meetings  ;  it  is  the  devil  that 
ought  to  be  exorcised  to  begin  with.  But  men  say,  "  I 
have  nothing  to  say,"  thinking  that  if  a  man  speaks  he 
ought  in  some  sense  to  imitate  a  minister ;  that  speak- 
ing in  a  prayer-meeting  ought  in  some  way  or  other  to 
be  ministerial,  and  that  the  speaker  should  discuss  a 
point,  unfold  a  doctrinal  truth,  state  some  discrimina- 
tion ;  that  some  catechetical  matter  should  be  explained. 
Now,  if  you  get  rid  of  that  idea,  there  are  a  great  many 
men  who  have  a  great  deal  to  say.  As,  for  instance, 


66  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  value  of  patience  is  up,  and  I  say,  "  Mr. ,  what 

has  been  your  experience  in  respect  to  that?  You 
had  a  family  of  four  boys;  they  all  died  drunkards, 
did  n't  they  ? "  He  rises  very  slowly ;  he  is  very  broken 
in  his  language;  he  says,  "Yes,  they  inherited  that  ten- 
dency from  my  ancestors."  "  Did  you  find  it  very  easy 
to  bear  with  them  ? "  "  Oh !  when  my  first  boy  came 
home,  it  seemed  as  though  I  would  burn  the  house  down 
over  my  head ;  it  seemed  as  though  I  would  give  up 
everything ;  it  seemed  as  though  I  was  all  on  fire  ;  my 
brain  and  everything  was  upset."  He  goes  on  and  gives 
the  way  in  which  his  feelings  were  changed.  You 
question  him,  you  help  him,  you  bring  him  out.  "  How 
was  it  when  the  second  one  came  in  ? "  And  that  man 
will  unfold  the  history  of  a  father-heart  striving  and 
moaning  after  faith  and  hope  in  God,  and  holding 
on  to  those  boys  that  are  bringing  disgrace  on  them- 
selves and  wretchedness  on  the  household.  There  he 
has  been  for,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  twenty  years, 
carrying  four  boys,  clinging  to  them,  losing  his  own 
life  almost  literally  for  their  sake.  There  is  a  grand 
epic  of  patience,  wrought  out  in  a  Christian  man's 
heart !  Cannot  I  develop  that  by  a  few  questions  ? 
And  when  the  Spirit  is  working,  and  when  men  are 
thus  speaking,  you  will  not  make  grammar  an  essential 
grace.  It  is  in  this  way  that  you  develop  gifts. 

WOMEN  TO   TAKE  PART. 

I  believe  in  women  speaking  and  praying  in  meet- 
ings, as  well  as  preaching  and  lecturing  and  voting,  — 
not  voting  in  meeting,  but  Voting.  I  feel  that  the 
church  has  lost  one  half  of  its  best  power  in  the  exclu- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      67 

sion  of  the  sisterhood  from  speaking  in  our  meetings. 
But  revivals  know  no  law,  and  the  consequence  is,  that 
when  we  have  revivals  and  morning  meetings,  even 
the  stiffest  churches  allow  mothers  to  get  up  and  ask 
prayers  for  their  children.  And,  once  get  them  on  their 
feet,  with  a  very  little  dexterity  you  can  catch  some 
very  nice  silver  and  gold  fish  out  of  them.  "When  they 
open  their  mouths,  throw  in  a  question.  In  that  way,  I 
have  frequently  done  what  I  could  not  do  in  any  other. 
It  is  said,  "  Open  your  meetings  to  women,  and  you  will 
get  only  the  chaff.  Only  the  scatter-brains  will  speak, 
and  all  those  who  are  considerate  and  modest  will  be 
silent."  Why  should  they  not,  when  you  sit  glowering 
there  ;  and,  though  you  throw  the  noose,  they  know  you 
don't  want  to  catch  them  ?  There  is  no  encouragement, 
no  help,  no  temptation,  nothing  ;  and  only  those  speak 
that  don't  care  for  you  or  your  desires.  And  what  hope 
or  courage  is  there,  under  such  circumstances,  for  any- 
body that  is  self-respecting  ?  But  presently  prayers  are 
being  asked  for  children,  and  one  father  gets  up  and  says, 
"  I  have  a  son  at  sea,  and  I  ask'  prayers  for  him  "  ;  and 
another  one  gets  up  and  says,  "  I  have  a  son  of  whom  I 
have  heard  that  he  is  lying  sick  of  a  dangerous  fever, 
and  I  ask  prayers  of  the  brethren  for  him."  "  Are  there 
any  other  requests  to  be  made  ? "  An  elderly  woman, 
rising,  says,  "  My  son  and  daughter  are  dead,  and  I  have 
five  of  their  children  to  take  care  of,  and  I  strive  with 
poverty,  according  to  my  best  endeavors;  I  ask  the 
sympathy  and  the  prayers  of  the  brethren  for  these 
five."  "  How  many  are  there,  madam,  did  you  say  ?  " 
"  Five."  "  How  old  are  they  ? "  "  Well,  the  oldest  is  now 
seventeen,  and  he  is  the  strongest  one  among  us,  and 


68  LECTUKES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

then  —  "  "  What  are  the  ages  of  the  others,  madam  ? 
What  is  the  disposition  of  this  eldest  son,  and  has  he 
ever  shown  any  inclination  toward  religious  things  ? " 
"Yes,  sir;  he  has,  at  times,  shown  a  good  deal  of  feeling." 
I  can  get  a  good  speech  out  of  her  before  she  knows  it, 
and  you  know  it  will  be  substance,  every  bit  of  it ;  it 
will  be  meat.  And  so  you  can  get  a  well-regulated 
woman  talking  in  prayer-meeting,  without  anybody 
being  shocked  or  hurt.  In  that  sly  way,  young  gentle- 
men, you  can  circumvent  the  old  fogies  and  have  the 
women  talk  in  meeting  without  offence. 

If  I  have  any  remembrance  of  my  own  mother ;  if 
I  have  a  remembrance  of  the  other,  the  second  mother, 
that  brought  me  up ;  if  I  have  any  remembrance  of  my 
sisters  and  of  those  aunts  that  were  more  than  Virgin 
Marys  to  me,  and  who  dedicated  themselves  to  virgin- 
ity that  they  might  give  their  lives  to  charity ;  if  I  re- 
member the  prayers  that  they  uttered  over  us  little 
children,  the  instruction  they  gave  us  out  of  the  Word 
of  God,  the  conversations  that  they  held,  —  I  know  that 
I  have  derived  the  deepest,  the  sweetest,  and  the  truest 
religious  impressions  of  my  life  from  the  utterances  of 
woman.  And  if  woman  has  these  gifts,  and  can  speak 
to  children  in  the  household,  I  say  that  she  has  no 
right  to  put  her  light  under  the  bushel  of  the  family, 
but  that  she  should  set  it  on  a  candlestick,  where  it 
shall  light  all  that  are  in  the  house.  And  the  church 
has  a  right  to  the  gifts  of  these  women, — the  mothers 
and  the  sisters  that  are  doing  the  great  work  of  life.  It 
is  gold  too  precious  to  be  lost,  and  we  are  dying  for 
want  of  just  such  material ;  and  yet,  on  a  mere  quid- 
dity, on  a  mere  punctilio,  we  are  excluding  from  the 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      69 

church  elements  that  would  make  us  incomparably  rich. 
And  so  we  have  our  beanpoles  of  propriety,  but  not  a 
morning-glory  twining  round  about  them  and  blossom- 
ing to  the  glory  of  God. 

I  will  not  in  this  indirect  way  attempt  to  make  a 
lecture  on  women's  rights.  I  simply  bring  this  in  as 
an  illustration,  —  and  it  will  also  suggest  a  way  in 
which  you  can  bring  in  unpalatable  subjects  merely  as 
illustrations. 

(I  was  speaking  about  the  way  in  which  the  prayer- 
meeting  develops  the  gifts  of  the  members  of  the  church, 
and  all  these  remarks,  therefore,  you  will  set  down 
under  that  head.) 

THE  PEAYER-MEETING  MAKES  TRUTH  PERSONAL. 

Then,  meetings  for  prayer,  properly  managed,  take 
truth  from  its  generic  condition  and  bring  it  home  to 
men  as  a  personal  thing.  It  becomes  casuistry.  You 
develop  cases  of  conscience ;  you  develop  grades  of 
disposition ;  you  develop  truth  in  its  relations,  as  you 
cannot  in  any  other  way. 

One  of  the  troubles  which  every  minister  of  any  stand- 
ing and  experience  has  found,  has  been  how  to  fashion 
sermons  so  that  a  great  truth  could,  after  all,  be  made 
to  branch  till  it  reached  out  and  touched  all  the  indi- 
vidual cases.  He  has  had  the  feeling  come  over  him, 
"  Well,  they  are  simply  infinite  ! "  And  a  sermon  may 
begin  like  the  handle  of  a  splint  broom,  but  it  will  end 
with  as  many  different  points  as  there  are  in  the  end  of 
the  broom.  So  you  feel  that  you  cannot  do  it.  True,  you 
cannot  so  well  do  it  in  the  pulpit.  But,  if  you  have  a 
living  church,  —  and  it  depends  upon  yourself  whether 


70  LECTUKES   ON  PKEACHING. 

you  have  or  not, —  if  you  make  your  prayer-meetings 
so  social,  so  genial,  so  elastic,  so  open-mouthed  and 
open-hearted,  that  you  can  ask  anybody  questions  and 
they  are  not  ashamed  to  talk,  and  talk  goes  backward 
and  forward  among  them,  —  and  almost  every  man  sees 
things  a  little  differently  from  his  neighbor,  —  and  one 
and  another  asks,  "  What  shall  I  do  in  such  and  such  a 
case  ? "  —  you  will  find  that  a  truth  which  you  state 
generically  instantly  becomes  specific,  —  that  it  is  mul- 
titudinous. I  am  continually  struck  with  this,  that 
when  I  introduce  a  topic  in  prayer-meeting,  and  open  it 
as  it  runs  in  my  mind,  I  hardly  get  through  presenting 
it  —  I  am  hopeful,  I  look  at  things  in  the  light  of  courage 
and  hope  —  before  a  brother  on  my  left  hand,  who  always 
has  a  kind  of  melancholy  caution,  brings  me  up  with, 
"  Don't  you  think,  Brother  Beecher,  that  if  persons  were 
to  follow  that  out  in  such  and  such  relations  it  would 
be  liable  to  such  and  such  perversions  ? "  "  Oh  yes,  I 
never  thought  to  stop  up  that  hole  " ;  so  then  I  give  it 
a  little  plaster  in  that  direction.  And  so  it  goes  all 
around,  and  men  look  at  the  subject  from  some  ex- 
perience of  their  own,  from  some  habitude  of  their  own 
minds,  from  some  new,  different  philosophy  of  their  own. 
They  put  questions  which  result  in  the  end  in  bringing 
this  truth  home,  from  its  generic  state,  to  a  personal 
truth,  to  black  and  white,  to  each  particular  person. 
He  gets  it  as  he  wants  it. 

So  truth,  when  you  bring  it  into  a  congregation,  is 
like  a  roll  of  cloth,  which  may  be  cut  and  fitted  to  all 
the  different  sizes  of  men.  It  comes  in  cloth,  it  goes 
out  garments.  When  you  come  to  see  how  truth  stands 
in  its  relations  to  the  individual  man ;  the  infinity  of 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      71 

it,  the  universality  of  it,  the  nmltitudinousness  of  it, 
the  richness,  the  wonderful  power  in  it,  —  this  is  one 
of  the  most  convincing  evidences  of  its  divinity. 
The  truth,  when  you  come  to  study  it  in  relation  to 
men's  wants,  is  like  nature  itself,  when  you  come  to 
study  it  in  all  its  infinite  diversities  and  minute  dif- 
ferences. This  is  the  work  of  the  prayer-meeting. 
Don't  you  begin  to  feel  ashamed  that  you  have  done 
so  little  with  the  prayer-meeting  ?  Don't  you  begin 
to  think  that  the  prayer-meeting  is  the  long-lost  art, 
and  that  the  church  ought,  more  than  on  anything 
else,  to  pivot  on  that?  I  think  a  church  is  more 
likely  to  live  a  great  while  that  pivots  on  the  prayer- 
meeting,  than  those  are  that  pivot  on  the  pulpit. 

IT  ATTRACTS   OUTSIDERS. 

There  is  also  in  this  matter  an  application  of  the 
prayer-meeting  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your  attention,  — 
the  effect  which  a  prayer-meeting  of  this  kind  has,  from 
time  to  time,  upon  outsiders,  upon  spectators.  In  the 
first  place,  the  freshness,  the  liveliness,  and  the  reality 
of  it  bring  men  to  it.  Your  meeting  will  be  crowded 
in  a  little  while.  It  will  grow ;  and  by  and  by  you 
will  make  chords  vibrate  in  men's  hearts,  as  you  bring 
out  the  power  that  is  wrought  by  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
personal  experience  of  individuals,  —  filling  the  whole  air 
with  a  new  sense  of  Providence  and  Divinity,  sending 
men  home  enlightened  and  strengthened  in  the  midst 
of  their  struggles,  and  enriched  by  the  conscious  pres- 
ence of  God  in  a  thousand  ways.  People  will  come  to 
the  meeting ;  and  you  cannot  get  a  room  big  enough  to 
hold  them  under  such  circumstances. 


72  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 


THE  EFFECT  ON   SPECTATORS. 

I  call  your  attention  to  the  effect  which  it  produces 
upon  spectators  who  are  not  Christians.  Take  them 
into  an  ordinary  prayer-meeting,  and  it  is  the  most 
dangerous  place  you  can  bring  them  to.  It  produces 
on  them  very  much  a  sense  of  imprisonment.  It  is 
galley-work,  and  they  don't  like  it.  The  idea  of  going 
to  the  trouble  of  being  convicted  and  converted  in  order 
to  get  into  a  prayer-meeting  is  rather  discouraging  to 
them ;  and  I  must  say  I  don't  blame  them.  But  let  a 
man  going  by  step  into  a  real  prayer-meeting.  He 
hears  singing  in  there,  and  rousing  good  singing  too. 
He  rather  likes  hymns,  and  he  slips  inside  of  the  door 
and  sits  down.  A  man  gets  up,  after  the  meeting  has 
advanced,  and  says,  "Brethren,  our  pastor  has  been 
opening  up  the  subject  of  Sincerity,  and  it  came  pretty 
near  to  me.  I  try  to  be  sincere,  but  I  must  confess 
that  in  conducting  my  business  I  slide  sometimes, 
before  I  think.  Now,  yesterday  I  went  into  a  transac- 
tion something  like  this,"  —  and  he  gives  an  account 
of  an  affair  in  which  he  had  been  a  little  too  quick  for 
the  other  man,  and  rather  got  the  best  end  of  the 
bargain ;  and  he  says,  "  Well,  I  did  n't  feel  particularly 
happy  all  the  way  back  to  the  store.  My  conscience 
rather  accused  me,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I 
should  go  and  rectify  that  thing."  The  man  who 
slipped  in  is  the  very  man  with  whom  he  had  that 
dealing,  and  who  had  said  of  him, "  Damn  him  !  he  is  a 
member  of  the  church."  That  is  what  he  said  imme- 
diately after  the  business  transaction,  but  what  does  he 
say  now  ?  "  Bless  his  heart !  The  old  fellow  has  some 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      73 

feeling,  has  n't  he  ? "  Now,  any  man  that  can  change 
a  "damn"  into  a  "bless"  is  doing  a  good  work.  But 
here  is  a  man  who  judges  men  by  no  charitable  stand- 
ard, who  sees  things  as  they  are  in  business.  He  comes 
in  and  sees  a  man  who  had  all  his  life  had  faults.  He 
finds  out  that  that  man  knows  them,  and  is  trying  to 
get  over  them.  He  knows  that  that  man  tried  sharp 
practice  over  him,  and  sees  that  he  feels  sorry  for  it. 
He  is  speaking  about  it,  though  in  an  impersonal  way. 
"  Eeally,"  says  the  new-comer,  "  I  guess  there  is  some 
sincerity,  after  all,  in  religion."  When  he  goes  home, 
he  says  to  his  wife,  "  Where  do  you  suppose  I  have 
been  ?  "  "  Well,  I  don't  know.  I  suppose  around  to 
Fox's,  to  see  Humpty  Dumpty."  "No,  guess  again. 
Where  do  you  suppose  I  have  been  ? "  "  Well,  I  don't 
know.  Some  theater."  "  No,  guess  once  more."  "  I 
give  it  up."  "  I  have  been  around  to  the  prayer-meet- 
ing." That  is  a  surprise  to  her.  Says  he,  "  I  tell  you 
what ;  it  was  really  a  good  meeting.  I  positively 
enjoyed  it."  He  has  to  tell  it  all.  When  the  time  for 
the  next  meeting  comes  round,  he  says,  "  Put  on  your 
shawl,  my  dear,  and  let  us  go  around  to  the  prayer- 
meeting  and  see  what  we  will  get."  They  go  around, 
and  find  that  it  is  fresh,  and  means  business.  He  may 
not  believe  all  he  hears  there,  but,  after  all,  there  are 
many  truths.  Men  come  together,  and  they  take  hold 
of  the  very  roots  of  subjects  and  discuss  them.  They 
try  to  be  honest.  That  man  cannot  help  himself.  He 
is  already  convicted.  He  has  not  a  Mount  Sinai  con- 
viction, perhaps,  but  he  may  have  a  little  haycock 
conviction.  He  has  got  a  consciousness  of  faults.  He 
has  got  the  preliminary  tentative  states  that,  under 


74  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

ordinary,  suitable,  fair  instruction,  will  develop  in  him. 
Manly  sympathy,  really  humane  feeling  toward  him, 
will  bring  that  man  right  along.  Ask  him,  "  Don't  you 
think  you  have  faults  ?  Don't  you  commit  sins  ?  Are 
you  not  guilty  of  derelictions  both  to  God  and  man  ? 
Is  n't  it  time  for  you  to  begin  to  think  about  this 
thing  ? " 

Other  men  come  in  there.  They  are  exhilarated, 
they  are  lifted  up.  Don't  let  a  prayer-meeting  know 
that  there  is  anybody  there  but  the  "  brethren."  Don't 
say  a  word  to  "sinners."  I  would  shut  up  a  man's 
mouth  who  began  to  talk  in  that  way,  as  quick  as  I 
would  turn  the  faucet  of  a  wine-cask  if  the  wine  were 
leaking  away.  It  is  the  actual  sight  of  what  we  mean 
by  piety,  it  is  the  sight  of  imperfection,  it  is  the  hear- 
ing of  groans,  it  is  the  sight .  of  tears,  it  is  the  recital 
of  joys,  it  is  faith,  it  is  hope,  it  is  love,  it  is  fellowship, 
it  is  helpfulness,  —  not  in  any  of  their  grander  poetical 
forms,  but  as  they  exist  in  actual  men  and  women,  — 
it  is  the  battle  of  life  going  on  before  men's  eyes, 
that  make  the  most  imperative  and  impersonal  of  all 
ways  of  preaching  the  truth  to  many  men.  There  is 
many  a  man  that  can  stand  the  great  fifteen-inch  gun 
of  the  pulpit,  that  cannot  stand  this  mitrailleuse,  this 
multitudinous  fire  of  the  whole  church. 

I  have  been  accustomed  in  times  of  revivals  of  re- 
ligion to  say  to  persons  awakened  and  coming  slowly 
along  in  their  steps  toward  the  light,  "  Come  to  the 
morning  prayer-meeting."  The  most  converting  agency 
I  have  known  in  my  whole  ministry  has  been  the  morn- 
ing prayer-meeting,  when  I  could  keep  the  hounds  off 
of  men,  so  that  they  should  not  be  exhorting  them  and 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      75 

telling  them  how  sinful  they  were.  Let  them  alone ; 
let  them  see  what  the  grace  of  God  is  in  the  brother- 
hood. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 
Q.   How  would  you  stop  those  exhorters  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  you  cannot  always  stop  them. 
You  have  got  to  drive  prayer-meetings  just  as  you  do 
horses.  You  cannot  keep  flies  from  biting  them,  nor 
them  from  whisking  their  tails,  in  a  summer's  day. 
You  have  got  to  make  the  best  of  your  annoyances. 
The  absurd  saints  that  I  have  had,  the  ridiculous  crea- 
tures that  have  come  in,  the  interruptions  that  we  have 
had !  Meetings  brought  to  a  blessed  point,  —  like  a 
cow  that  has  given  a  good  bucket  of  milk  only  to  put 
her  foot  in  it, — to  be  entirely  ruined !  There  is  a  kind 
of  spiritual  hummers  that  run  around  to  prayer-meet- 
ings. I  will  tell  you  more  about  that,  however,  next 
week. 

Q.  What  about  the  length  of  prayers  in  prayeivmeetings  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Short,  generally,  but  long  when  you 
can't  help  it.  I  would  n't  want  the  Ohio  to  overflow 
its  banks,  or  the  Miami  to  run  over,  but  once  a  year. 
We  used  to  let  them  when  the  snows  melted  on  the 
mountains,  —  we  could  n't  help  ourselves.  Down  came 
the  torrents ;  and  I  have  seen  the  biggest  boats  navi- 
gating the  streets  of  Lawrenceburg.  I  liked  once  a 
year  to  have  a  good  freshet ;  but  I  did  n't  want  any 
more. 

That  matter,  I  think,  may  almost  always  be  controlled 
with  a  very  little  drill. 


76  LECTUKES   ON  PREACHING. 

Q.  I  would  like  to  hear  a  word  further,  if  you  are  not  going  to 
take  it  up  hereafter,  as  to  how  the  leader  of  the  meeting  shall 
open  the  subject.  There  is  danger  of  his  so  opening  it  that  peo- 
ple will  say,  "  Well,  I  can't  say  anything  after  that ! "  What  is 
the  way  in  which  a  leader  shall  open  a  meeting  so  that  everybody 
shall  feel  free  to  speak  after  it  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  that  is  a  very  important  con- 
sideration. One  of  the  things  that  every  minister 
ought  to  have  implanted  in  him  is,  that  he  is  not  going 
to  do  well  every  time,  and  that  he  is  not  going  to  do 
well  at  first,  always,  and  that  he  has  got  to  take  up  his 
cross  and  to  carry  it  in  just  such  things  as  these.  He 
has  got  to  learn  his  trade  while  he  is  practicing  it 
for  a  living.  In  opening  a  prayer-meeting,  very  likely 
no  directions  can  be  given.  Practice  will  teach.  With 
any  considerable  gumption  to  begin  with,  you  will  very 
soon  see  when  you  make  your  opening  too  good.  Avoid 
making  too  good  speeches  at  the  beginning  of  a  meet- 
ing ;  do  not  say  all  that  you  have  to  say  on  a  sub- 
ject. On  the  other  hand,  avoid  any  such  magisterial 
manner,  any  such  jealousy  of  the  cloth,  that  nobody 
will  feel  disposed  to  come  forward.  Then,  if  they  will 
not  come  up  when  you  have  opened  a  subject,  question 

them,  call  them  up.   "  Mr. ,  what  do  you  think  of 

that  idea  ? "    Well,  Mr. has  to  say  something,  and 

the  moment  he  does,  you  tackle  him,  because  he  won't 
say  much  unless  you  dispute  him,  and  you  will  have  a 
little  bit  of  an  argument.  But,  the  moment  anybody 
begins  to  talk,  somebody  else  puts  in  a  word,  and  you 
ask  some  other  one  for  his  views.  Then  it  will  go 
around.  There  are  a  thousand  arts  of  that  kind  that 
are  perfectly  innocent  and  allowable,  which  a  man 
must  learn. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING:  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      77 

Why,  young  gentlemen,  being  a  minister  means 
being  busy,  I  can  tell  you,  from  one  end  to  the  other 
of  your  life;  either  busy  in  your  study,  busy  on  the 
street,  or  busy  in  your  meetings.  If  anybody  has  got 
to  be  observant,  fruitful,  wise,  full  of  tact  and  inspira- 
tion, it  is  the  man  that  undertakes  to  lead  a  congrega- 
tion in  prayer-meetings. 

I  may  still  further  answer  to  that  question,  that  a 
wise  pastor,  who  is  conducting  meetings,  will  be  con- 
ducting meetings  all  the  week  long.  There  will  be  an 
undertone  in  his  mind.  All  manner  of  feelings  and 
thoughts  are  running  through  your  mind,  and  you 
may  just  as  well  have  something  which  will  be  of 
value  to  you.  You  see  a  man.  You  say  to  yourself, 
"  I  wonder  how  I  can  get  at  that  man  ;  I  wonder  how 
his  sensibilities  are."  You  will  survey  him,  and  look 
at  him,  as  an  engineer  looks  at  a  fort.  You  say,  "  How 
can  I  attack  that  man  ? "  General  Sherman  never  rides 
through  a  country,  I  believe,  without  looking  at  the 
topography  of  it.  He  says,  "  There  is  a  good  place  for  a 
battery ;  how  finely  my  flanks  would  be  protected  over 
there  ! "  He  is  engaged  in  noting  the  military  advanta- 
ges of  the  country. 

A  minister  has  got  to  be  busy  all  the  while.  When- 
ever you  see  a  man,  eat  him.  Whenever  you  see  a  man, 
dissect  him.  Think  how  you  would  approach  this  one  ; 
how  you  would  get  at  his  conscience,  whether  by  going 
down  through  the  scuttle  of  pride  and  vanity,  whether 
by  coming  up  through  the  cellar  of  shame  and  fear. 
You  see  children  doing  things ;  you  see  bees,  —  a  thou- 
sand things  that  are  full  of  analogies.  If  need  be,  put 
them  down  in  your  note-book.  But  keep  collecting  them 
all  the  while,  —  let  your  thighs  be  yellow. 


78  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Q.  What  is  the  value  of  the  young  people's  prayer-meeting  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  think  it  to  be  very  great.  It  is,  of 
course,  subject  to  all  those  infelicities  that  belong  to 
youth,  which  young  people  do  not  believe  in,  but  old 
people  do.  It  is  subject  to  a  great  many  crudenesses, 
but  the  average  result  is  admirable.  It  brings  out  and 
gives  form  in  young  Christians  to  obscure  feelings.  It 
gives  them  courage  and  definiteness  of  commitment.  It 
teaches  them  how  to  use  their  implements  in  a  Chris- 
tian warfare  at  an  early  period.  It  knits  them  together, 
one  to  another.  In  a  thousand  ways  it  is  beneficial. 

Q.  What  would  you  say  about  the  long  prayer,  so  called,  before 
the  sermon  ?  Old  Dr.  Ely,  of  Munson,  used  to  pray  thirty  and 
forty  minutes.  Is  such  a  prayer  a  means  of  grace  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  should  say  it  was.  A  man  brought 
up  under  such  circumstances,  who  was  not  patient, 
might  think  his  was  a  hopeless  case.  .  So  of  long  family 
prayers.  A  man  entering  a  house  after  the  prayer  was 
begun,  and  waiting  a  long  time,  asked  a  boy  how  long 
before  his  father  would  be  done.  The  boy  replied, 
"  Has  he  come  to  the  Jews  yet  ? "  "No,"  was  the  an- 
swer. "  Then  it  will  be  half  an  hour  more."  Of  course, 
such  stories  are  to  be  taken  with  allowance ;  they  are 
exaggerations.  But  exaggerations  are  in  rhetoric  what 
magnifying  a  flower  or  a  beetle  is  in  natural  history. 
We  cannot  see  them  so  well  unless  we  do  magnify 
them. 

Long  prayers  are,  as  a  general  rule,  nuisances.  It  is 
not  often  that  a  man  is  so  wound  up  in  feeling  that 
nature  compels  the  feeling  to  iterate  and  reiterate  it- 
self. A  great  loss  or  bereavement,  if  it  does  not  put 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  METHODS  AND  BENEFITS.      79 

one  to  silence,  leads  one  in  few  words  to  repeat,  and  re- 
peat, and  repeat.  I  have  seen  mothers  that,  like  the 
King  of  Israel,  walked  about  the  room  moaning,  "  My 
son !  my  son !  my  son  !  my  son  ! "  a  hundred  times. 
Others  I  have  heard  say,  "  0  my  God !  0  my  God  !  O 
my  God ! "  It  was  mute  prayer,  —  ejaculatory  prayer, 
running  on  as  long  as  the  wounded  heart  had  blood  to 
bleed.  But  for  men  in  cold  blood  to  come  into  a  meet- 
ing and,  without  any  great  feeling  in  themselves  or  any 
great  feeling  round  about  them,  to  open  up  Euphrates 
or  the  Mississippi,  —  it  is  abominable !  And  if  they 
should  do  it  a  few  times  in  my  meeting,  I  would  stop 
them,  or  I  would  cut  them  in  two. 

Q.  Do  you  not  think  the  objection  of  formality  can  be  brought 
against  asking  a  blessing  at  table  three  times  a  day  ?  What  can  you 
say  about  the  origin  and  desirableness  of  this  custom  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  I  can  say  that  there  is  no  ob- 
ligation in  the  custom,  and  its  formality  depends  entirely 
on  who  does  it  and  how  he  does  it.  I  dined  with  an 
English  clergyman  in  London,  and  we  had  got  about 
through  the  main  dinner  and  were  coming  to  the  fruit, 
—  Dr.  Raymond  and  I  were  sitting  on  opposite  sides 
of  the  table.  We  were  in  the  full  tide  of  conversa- 
tion, and  there  was  no  other  company  except  the  cler- 
gyman and  his  wife.  .After  the  cloth  had  been  re- 
moved, —  I  was  in  the  midst  of  a  stoiy,  I  think,  — 
they  both  rose,  and  I  heard,  "  Blb-lb-lb-lb ! "  and  they 
sat  down  again.  "  What,  sir  ? "  said  I.  I  found  out, 
afterwards,  that  he  had  said, "  Lord,  make  us  thankful 
for  these  blessings  ! "  Well,  now,  I  consider  any  such 
thing  as  that  absurd,  —  worse  than  useless.  But  to 


80  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

see  the  children  gathered  at  the  table,  the  old  father, 
venerable  and  sincere,  and  the  mother,  reverend  and 
matronly,  sweet-hearted  as  a  saint,  the  children  all  in 
their  places,  hungry  but  yet  waiting;  and  to  see  the 
old  man  bow  his  head  and  recognize  the  hand  of  God 
in  all  those  bounties,  in  a  short  and  appropriate  thanks- 
giving, —  I  don't  know  how  that  is  to  others,  but  it 
makes  my  bread  sweet.  I  like  it !  If  anybody  don't, 
he  is  perfectly  at  liberty  to  let  it  alone. 

Q.  Is  there  any  more  objection  to  that  kind  of  formalism  than 
there  is  to  the  shaking  of  hands  when  you  meet  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Or  saying  good  bye ;  which  is, "  God 
be  with  you."  Nobody  thinks  of  it,  but  it  expresses 
this,  —  good- will.  Even  my  English  friend,  I  suppose, 
regarded  his  returning  thanks  as  being  a  general  indi- 
cation that  he  had  yet  remaining  a  sense  of  the  Divine 
favor  in  his  dinner.  If  they  are  formal,  the  remedy 
does  not  seem  to  me  to  consist  in  abolishing  them,  but 
in  making  them  sincere. 


rv. 


THE    PRAYER-MEETING:    ITS     HELPS    AND 
HINDKANCES. 

SHALL  resume  the  subject  of  prayer-meet- 
ings under  the  general  head  of  its  Helps  and 
Hindrances.  Let  me  premise  that  you  may 
be  in  danger,  from  the  variety  of  statements 
and  from  the  incitements  to  the  ideal  of  the  power 
and  admirableness  of  the  prayer-meeting  which  I  con- 
tinually attempt  to  develop,  of  going  to  your  work  in  such 
a  state  of  mind  that  when  you  do  not  succeed  at  once,  or 
well,  you  will  be  thrown  back  in  discouragement. 

HARD  WORK  FOR  THE  MINISTER. 

There  are  two  very  important  and  very  difficult 
things  to  do,  namely,  to  maintain  a  lofty  ideal,  and  yet 
not  be  disgusted  with  ill  success  under  it ;  to  keep  on 
trying ;  not  to  content  yourself  with  poor  results,  but 
not  to  give  over  because  you  cannot  reach  the  mark 
which  you  have  in  your  mind.  This  will  be  particu- 
larly true  of  your  ministerial  life.  And  it  may  be 
some  comfort  to  you  by  and  by,  though  of  course  you 
will  not  feel  it  now,  to  know  that  the  most  difficult 


82  LECTURES   ON  PEEACHING. 

thing  that  you  will  have  to  do  in  your  ministry  is  to 
maintain  a  live  prayer-meeting.  It  is  about  the  hard- 
est work  you  will  ever  know.  It  will  tax  your  inge- 
nuity the  most ;  it  will  tax  your  resources,  your  power 
over  men  and  over  yourself,  your  administrative  facul- 
ty. He  who  can  take  a  parish  and  develop  in  it  a  good 
prayer-meeting,  carry  it  on  through  years  and  still  have 
it  fruitful,  various,  spiritual,  —  he  is  a  general.  It  may 
be  that  he  will  not  excel  in  the  pulpit ;  the  prayer- 
meeting,  under  such  circumstances,  is  his  pulpit. 

If  you  go  into  your  work,  therefore,  with  some  dis- 
couragement, remember  what  I  tell  you,  that  as  "he 
that  bridle th  his  tongue  is  perfect," — that  is,  he  who 
has  grace  enough  to  do  that  has  grace  enough  to  do  any- 
thing, —  so  the  minister  who  knows  how  to  make  a  good 
prayer-meeting  is  perfect,  in  a  sense.  It  is  true  that 
there  will  be  many  times  when  the  meeting  will  develop 
itself  like  a  geyser,  with  vast  volume  and  stones  up- 
springing  and  filling  the  air  as  well  as  shaking  the 
earth  under  your  feet ;  but,  like  the  geyser,  it  will  gurgle 
back  again,  and  leave  mud  and  smoke  behind.  It  is 
not  difficult  in  times  of  revival,  in  times  when  the  whole 
community  are  developed  in  the  direction  of  moral  ex- 
citement, to  arouse  feeling;  it  is  difficult  then  to  keep 
it  down,  to  give  it  anything  like  moderation.  The 
meeting  then  takes  the  bits  into  its  mouth  and  runs 
away  with  you. 

But  when  there  is  no  general  excitement,  in  summer 
months,  in  winter  months  ;  when  there  is  no  feeling 
anywhere;  to  maintain  the  heart  of  the  church  which 
beats  in  the  prayer-meeting,  warm,  genial,  crescent, — 
in  this  is  labor,  I  may  say  in  this  is  genius,  if  you 
succeed. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      83 


DIFFICULTY  OF  GATHERING  THE  PEOPLE. 

It  is  very  difficult,  in  some  places,  to  draw  the  people 
together  for  a  weekly  prayer-meeting.  There  is  that 
hindrance  to  overcome,  and  every  man  must  overcome 
it  in  the  particular  way  indicated  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  field  in  which  he  is  working,  —  for  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  give  a  general  rule.  Then,  where  the  population 
is  large,  there  is  an  indifference  to  contend  with.  I 
have  already  alluded  to  the  fact  that  prayer-meetings 
are  the  least  popular  of  all  meetings  in  the  church, 
whether  with  the  members  of  the  congregation  or  the 
members  of  the  church  itself.  And  it  is  for  a  very 
good  reason,  —  they  are  generally  the  driest  of  meetings. 
So  that  you  will  often  find,  when  you  come  into  a  large 
congregation,  that  the  weakest  place  in  it,  the  leanest 
part  of  the  service,  will  be  the  prayer-meeting.  You 
are  to  hold  yourself  in  the  main  responsible  for  this 
state  of  things,  after  you  are  well  established  in  your 
work 

THE  FOLLY-  OF   SCOLDING. 

Above  all  things,  do  not  scold  your  people  because 
they  do  not  attend.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  amount 
of  whips  or  of  skill  could  drive  a  swarm  of  bees  into  a 
field  where  there  were  not  a  dozen  flowers.  They  won't 
go.  And  to  get  them  into  a  field  where  there  are  a 
thousand  flowers,  there  is  no  need  of  whips  or  of  driv- 
ing. Now,  it  is  for  you  to  kindle  such  an  interest 
there  as  will  draw  men.  Generally,  in  your  ministry, 
do  as  Paul  did ;  encourage,  praise,  never  blame  until 
you  have  with  consummate  enginery  prepared  the  wTay 


84  LECTUKES   ON  PREACHING. 

to  blame.  When  Paul  wished  to  rebuke  people,  he  first 
stated  all  the  good  he  knew  about  them,  and  all  the 
pleasant  things  he  had  heard  about  them,  and  how  near 
and  dear  they  were  to  him.  "  Nevertheless,  brethren," 
he  would  say,  "  I  have  somewhat  —  "  and  then  comes 
in  the  other  thing !  In  general,  to  scold  your  people 
because  they  do  not  come  to  church  on  Sunday  is  to 
hit  those  that  do  come  and  miss  those  that  do  not.  To 
scold  or  to  blame  your  people  in  any  way  because  they 
do  not  come  to  meeting,  or  because  they  have  no  feeling, 
is  not  wise.  It  is  your  business  to  produce  the  feeling 
that  will  make  their  attendance  voluntary  and  cheerful, 
that  will  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  keep  away. 

HOW  TO   START  PRAYER-MEETINGS. 

In  the  beginning  of  a  prayer-meeting  of  this  kind, 
there  are  both  physical  and  moral  elements  that  enter 
into  it.  I  have  here  a  question  as  to  the  best  way  to 
start  a  prayer-meeting  in  a  place  where  there  is  none. 
"Well,  the  way  to  start  a  prayer-meeting  is  the  way  you 
would  start  a  fire.  If  it  is  an  old  church,  it  is  like  a  fire- 
place where  there  has  been  something  raked  up  over- 
night ;  in  the  morning,  there  is  not  a  coal  there  as  big  as 
a  thimble.  But  you  get  together  the  few  that  there  are. 
You  never  think  of  bringing  in  a  whole  armful  of  wood 
and  whanging  it  all  down  into  the  embers.  You  lay 
the  wood  aside,  selecting  the  driest  pieces  you  can  find, 
and  whittle  up  shavings ;  and,  having  gathered  the  few 
little  coals,  you  put  a  few  shavings  upon  them ;  then  you 
blow  the  little  pile  gently  at  first,  and  up  springs  a  light 
blaze.  Then  you  lay  on  a  few  more  shavings,  dealing 
with  it  all  the  time  as  carefully  and  tenderly  as  a  mother 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      85 

does  with  a  baby ;  then,  by  and  by,  you  put  on  a  dry 
stick,  picking  out  the  fittest  and  the  best,  and  soon  the 
flame  will  get  power ;  and  at  last,  when  the  whole  fire 
is  kindled,  you  can  put  on  what  you  please,  green  wood 
or  dry,  it  will  consume  the  strongest  and  toughest 
materials. 

In  the  beginning,  remember  that  the  prayer-meeting 
turns  on  this  fact :  it  is  the  development  of  the  social 
dement  in  the  religious  direction.  Suppose,  in  an  old 
church,  in  a  great  state  of  deadness,  one  or  two  brethren 
feel  that  they 'cannot  live  so,  and  there  are  two  ways 
proposed.  One  is,  to  get  the  minister  to  preach  a  big 
sermon  on  that  subject,  and  then  to  ring  the  bell,  and 
call  everybody  to  come  down  into  the  conference-room 
or  lecture-room,  and  try  to  have  a  prayer-meeting. 
That  will  fail,  nine  times  in  ten.  Suppose,  instead  of 
that,  you  look  around  to  find  some  one  who  feels  as 
you  feel.  Ask  him  to  come  to  your  house  for  prayer. 
Both  of  you  look  around  for  a  third  who  shall  be  con- 
genial, susceptible,  warm.  Get  three  together.  Three 
are  very  powerful  on  the  fourth,  and  four  on  the  fifth. 
When  you  have  got  a  praying  center  that  begins  to 
whirl  with  some  degree  of  power,  it  will  suck  in  ma- 
terials just  as  fast  as  you  ought  to  have  them  come. 
Begin  at  the  bottom,  begin  low,  begin  and  work  the 
principle  of  affiliation,  —  of  the  moral  affinities.  Work 
it  patiently,  and  in  faith  that  there  is  a  principle  there, 
and  you  will  succeed.  And  you  will  not  be  apt  to 
succeed  in  any  other  way. 

So,  then,  the  first  step  in  a  prayer-meeting  where  the 
interest  has  died  out  is  to  go  back  to  the  very  first 
elements ;  make  it  perfectly  simple,  perfectly  natural, 


86  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

be  yourself  fervent ;    and  fervency  creates  fervor,  as 
sparks  lead  to  sparks. 

POVERTY   OF  MATERIAL. 

Another  of  the  hindrances  which  we  find  in  our 
prayer-meetings  arises  from  the  poverty  of  the  ma- 
terial which  is  developed  in  them.  My  observation 
teaches  me  that  there  are  very  few  men  who  think 
enough  to  have  anything  to  spare  for  their  neighbors. 
In  books,  meditation  abounds.  There  is  a  good  deal 
of  talk  about  it,  but  I  have  never  seen  much  of  it  that 
people  had  to  hand  out  for  small  change  on  occasions. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  philosophy  in  the  world,  but 
it  expends  itself  mostly  and  is  absorbed  in  practical 
things.  And  when  you  take  men  who  have  always 
been  accustomed  to  work  out  all  that  they  have  in 
them  toward  the  concrete,  toward  visible  things,  and 
bring  them  together  in  a  meeting,  and  expect  them  to 
rise  up  in  their  places  and  develop  that  which  their 
whole  life  has  been  a  training  not  to  develop  (namely, 
abstract  meditation  or  anything  of  that  kind),  you  will 
find  very  soon,  that,  whether  it  be  devotion  or  medi- 
tation, there  is  but  very  little  of  it  grown,  and  much 
less  brought  to  market. 

So,  then,  you  will  find  a  great  poverty  in  the  materials 
which  you  work.  There  will  be  good  Christian  men 
and  women,  and  yet  it  will  be  very  hard  to  make  much 
out  of  them  in  a  prayer-meeting.  Remember  this ; 
don't  let  your  expectations  be  too  high.  Keep  your 
expectations  down  and  your  will  up.  Determine  that 
you  will  have  meetings,  first  or  last,  if  it  takes  years. 
Don't  be  impatient  on  the  way.  You  are  working  at 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      87 

tough  material.  You  are  doing  the  best  work  that  can 
be  done,  but  it  is  necessarily  low.  Then,  the  worst  of 
all  difficulties  is  not  that  people  are  barren ;  it  is  that 
they  are  blind,  and  naked,  and  sick,  and  do  not  know  it. 

NEED   OF  WISE  LEADERSHIP. 

Prayer-meetings  usually  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  few- 
hackneyed  leaders,  if  the  pastor  is  not  himself  present. 
Now,  deacons  and  elders  may  be  excellent  men  as 
elders  and  as  deacons,  and  yet  not  be  gifted  either  in 
spiritual  fervor  for  devotional  purposes,  or  in  the  tact 
that  is  requisite  to  lead  a  meeting.  J  have  seen 
deacon-smothered  churches  and  elder-smothered  prayer- 
meetings,  any  number  of  them,  where  men  went  into 
the  leadership  of  the  meeting  who  made  everybody 
afraid.  The  young  people  did  n't  dare  to  speak,  nobody 
dared  to  speak.  There  was  a  sort  of  "order"  in  the 
meeting.  To  be  sure,  worship  is  something,  edification 
is  something,  freedom  is  something,  but  oh,  "  Order ! 
order !  order  !  Let  everything  be  done  decently  and  in 
order."  And  so  they  were  as  orderly  as  a  pyramid  of 
mummies. 

STALE   SPEAKERS  AND   SPEECHES. 

Then,  too,  you  have  the  hackneyed  speeches  and 
hackneyed  prayers.  There  is  one  man  in  every  prayer- 
meeting  who  has  to  get  up  and  confess  that  he  don't 
live  up  to  his  privileges  and  to  his  light,  and  he  tells 
you  that  every  week,  or  it  may  be  every  month, 
through  the  whole  year.  He  never  gets  a  great  way 
beyond  that.  There  is  another  man  who  is  always 
confessing  his  sins,  and  confessing  and  confessing,  in  a 


88  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

general  way,  —  never  the  special  sins  that  his  neighbors 
see  in  him,  but  always  the  doctrine  of  sin,  and  not  the 
practice.  So  a  few  men  of  this  kind  run  right  around 
in  that  same  barren  path,  the  regulation  address  and 
remarks. 

Worst  of  all,  come  the  exhorters,  or  men  who  are 
always  urging  folks  up  to  their  duty.  This  I  shall 
speak  about  a  little  farther  on.  But  these  hackneyed 
speakers  in  prayer-meetings  take  the  life  out  of  them. 
Frequently  they  are  the  best  men  in  the  community  in 
other  respects,  but  they  are  not  adapted  to  that  place. 
Young  men,  how  are  you  going  to  get  along  with  these 
old  gray -heads  ?  Well,  you  cannot  at  first ;  but  there 
is  a  good  deal  that  can  be  done  by  good  sense  and 
patience,  and  real  kind,  humble  feeling.  Many  of  these 
men  have  in  them  better  springs  than  have  yet  been 
tapped.  There  are  many  of  them  that  can  do  a  great 
deal  better  than  they  think  they  can,  and  you  can  help 
a  good  deal  out  of  them.  They  are  to  be  revered,  if 
they  are  venerable ;  they  are  to  be  respected  for  their 
work,  if  they  have  been  useful ;  they  are  to  be  treated 
as  fathers,  and  not  with  contempt.  They  are  to  be 
treated,  especially  by  a  young  pastor,  with  the  greatest 
affection  and  kindness.  Nevertheless,  it  is  always 
fair  to  have  a  design  on  a  man  for  his  own  good ;  and 
it  is  always  fair  for  a  pastor,  seeing  these  men  in  the 
way,  to  do  two  things,  —  first,  to  attempt  to  get  more 
out  of  them,  to  talk  with  them,  to  lead  their  thoughts 
to  other  things,  to  get  them  to  express  other  things  when 
they  speak,  and  to  shorten  their  prayers  when  they 
pray;  secondly,  to  develop  another  center.  Bring  in 
new  material ;  get  hold  of  the  young,  and  put  new  life, 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      89 

new  blood,  into  the  meeting.  This  is  a  land  of  co- 
operative antagonism.  It  is  taking  the  meeting 
gradually  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  have  ridden 
it  to  death,  and  putting  it  into  the  hands  of  those 
that  have  come  up  under  better  auspices.  The  change 
will  be  gradual,  little  by  little.  An  old  church  is  very 
much  like  an  old  building.  You  have  the  quarrels, 
which  may  be  represented  by  the  rats  and  mice  in  the 
walls.  You  have  all  the  difficulties,  which  are  the 
leaks,  the  weather-boarding  and  shingles  off  here  and 
there.  You  have  the  smoky  chimneys,  the  squeaking 
doors,  the  ill-adjusted  steps,  —  a  hundred  things  that 
are  to  be  remedied.  You  begin  to  patch  in  here  and 
there,  —  to  revamp ;  working  on  the  house  little  by 
little,  till,  by  and  by,  you  get  into  a  state  that  is  whole- 
some and  comfortable  again.  An  old  church  has  to  be 
worked  very  much  in  this  way.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  it  would  not  be  bad  to  disband  old  churches. 
Dr.  Payson  used  to  say  that  if  he  could  have  his  own 
way  he  would  scatter  his  church  entirely  ;  and  then  all 
that  wanted  to  come  back  he  would  n't  take  in,  and  all 
that  didn't  want  to  come  back  he  would  draw  to- 
gether; indicating  that  the  forward  ones  were  the 
spiritually  conceited,  and  that  the  retiring  ones  were 
the  modest  and  the  humble.  And  although  this  is,  of 
course,  an  extravagance,  it  marks  a  thought. 

The  difficulty  of  combating  in  churches  the  old  heredi- 
tary troubles,  coming  out  in  meetings  and  other  social 
relations,  oftentimes  occupies  the  mind  of  the  young 
pastor  fully  as  much  as  all  the  rest  of  his  work  put 
together.  Old  churches  will  go  down  from  generation 
to  generation  and  have  something  very  noble,  even 


90  LECTUEES   ON  PREACHING. 

grand,  in  them ;  and,  except  in  special  cases,  you  are  not 
to  think  of  getting  rid  of  the  difficulties  as  you  might 
burn  a  barn  to  get  rid  of  the  rats.  But  you  have  got  a 
work  of  this  kind  to  do,  when  you  take  a  church,  that 
will  require  your  patience,  your  assiduity,  your  tact, 
your  knowledge  of  human  nature,  your  grace,  the  con- 
trol of  your  own  temper,  the  richness  and  depth  of 
your  spiritual  feelings. 

THE  MINISTER  TO   TRAIN  HIMSELF. 

There  is  another  element  of  which  I  would  speak,  — 
the  estimate  which  you  yourself,  and  those  of  your 
members  who  are  under  your  influence,  put  upon  the 
prayer-meeting.  If  you  prepare  your  sermon  labori- 
ously, if  you  make  Sunday  your  idol,  and  spend  all  your 
available  force  in  that  direction,  and  count  your  little 
social  meetings  during  the  week  as  "  only  prayer-meet- 
ings, —  nothing  to  do  to-day  but  my  prayer-meeting,"  — 
if  you  put  that  kind  of  emphasis  on  it,  you  certainly  will 
not  make  much  out  of  it.  Although  training  for  the 
pulpit  is  one  thing,  and  training  for  the  prayer-meeting 
is  another,  I  think  that  the  man  who  is  to  excel  in 
prayer-meetings  must  train  more  for  them,  though  dif- 
ferently, than  for  the  pulpit.  I  should  be  very  sorry 
to  be  forced  into  the  conduct  of  a  prayer-meeting  with- 
out having  anticipated  it  during  the  day ;  not  so  much 
that  I  might  think  what  I  was  going  to  say,  but,  as  it 
were,  to  beat  up  my  nature,  to  get  into  a  higher  mood, 
to  rise  into  a  thought  more  of  the  Infinite ;  to  get  some 
such  relation  to  men  as  I  think  God  has,  of  sympathy, 
pity,  tenderness,  and  sweetness ;  to  get  my  heart  all 
right,  so  that  everything  in  me  should  work  sympatheti- 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      91 

cally  toward   certain   devotional  ends.     Get  yourself 
trained. 

Never,  therefore,  regret  your  prayer-meetings;  the 
harder  they  are,  the  more  you  need  to  be  strong  in 
them,  the  more  you  need  to  feel  responsible  for  their 
right  conduct,  to  have  full-heartedness  in  going  into 
them.  Train  for  them,  then ;  not  so  much  by  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  what  you  shall  say, — though  that  at 
times  may  be  wise  and  useful,  —  as  by  having  the 
right  moral  forces,  the  right  sympathies,  in  yourself. 

LET  EVERY  MEETING  TAKE  ITS   OWN  SHAPE. 

In  conducting  prayer-meetings,  I  have  noticed  one 
mistake  which  is  constantly  and  naturally  made,  and 
that  is,  when  you  have  had  one  good  one,  to  have  the 
next  a  very  poor  one.  Just  as  young  ministers,  when 
they  have  preached  one  good  sermon,  think,  "  There, 
now  I  will  preach  another  next  Sunday  that  will  just 
be  the  mate  to  this."  And  when  on  the  next  Sun- 
day they  come  to  preach  it,  it  is  stale,  it  "  all  flats  out " 
in  their  hands,  and  they  do  not  know  what  the  difficulty 
is.  My  father  once  said  to  me,  "  Henry,  never  try  to 
run  a  race  with  yourself."  If  you  have  preached  a 
good  sermon,  do  not  try  to  preach  another  just  like  it ; 
do  not  try  to  fill  up  the  same  measure  that  you  have 
filled.  The  probability  is,  that  while  there  may  have 
been  much  labor  and  preparation  for  that  good  sermon, 
there  was  also  much  of  that  volunteer  force,  much  of 
that  native,  that  unexpected  help,  which  you  cannot 
get  again  by  mere  volition.  Time  and  again  I  have 
seen  a  prayer-meeting  that  rose  and  culminated,  full 
of  sweetness,  of  freshness,  of  Divine  spirit,  full  of 


92  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

the  best  fruit  of  the  Spirit  in  man.  Everybody  went 
away  edified,  happy,  and  joyful.  And  when  they  came 
together  the  next  time,  they  came  saying,  "  Now  let  us 
have  just  such  another."  There  never  was  and  never 
will  be  just  such  another.  You  may  turn  a  kaleido- 
scope a  million  times,  and  the  rays  never  will  fall  twice 
alike.  And  so  meetings,  since  they  spring  not  from 
prescribed  forms  and  definite  rules,  but  are  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  voluntary  conditions  of  feeling  in  hundreds 
of  persons,  can  never  be  just  alike. 

Therefore,  in  the  conduct  of  a  prayer-meeting,  while 
you  may  have  some  theme  or  topic,  while  you  may 
have  in  your  mind  some  idea  how  it  shall  shape  itself d 
and  run,  always  be  vigilant  to  see  if  there  is  not  a 
germ  in  the  meeting  itself,  and  be  sagacious  to  discern 
and  catch  it.  Frequently  you  will  go  thinking,  "  I  will 
spend  to-night  on  the  subject  of  prayer,"  and  you  make 
some  attempt  on  that  subject.  But  some  one  will  get 
up  and  bring  in  another  theme,  and  he  will  feel  it  so 
much  that  you  will  find  everybody  else  feels  it.  Seize 
that ;  do  not  go  back  to  the  old  topic,  you  have  got  the 
real  meeting  there.  And  with  a  little  nourishing,  blow- 
ing, catching  all  the  sparks  and  bringing  them  together, 
you  will  very  soon  have  a  meeting  that  opens  up  in 
nobleness  and  beauty.  Let  every  meeting  develop  the 
vitality  that  is  in  its  own  core ;  let  it  unfold  its  own 
germ.  There  is  a  germ,  if  men  only  know  how  to  de- 
velop it. 

FEELING  CANNOT  BE  FORCED. 

Let  me  say  a  word  on  the  subject  of  attempting  to 
force  feeling.  It  is  true  that  feeling  begets  feeling  by 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      93 

sympathy,  but  it  is  also  true  that  persons  may  be  so 
much  beyond  their  neighbors  in  any  given  direction  of 
feeling  that  the  chasm  between  them  cannot  be  filled 
up.  Then,  feeling  acts  just  the  other  way. 

I  recall  scenes  in  the  West.  I  recollect  being  at  a 
city  on  the  Ohio  Eiver,  and  a  brother  who  had  been 
laboring  for  nearly  four  weeks  in  camp-meeting  revivals 
was  sent  over  in  advance  of  Synod,  which  was  to 
meet  there,  to  prepare  the  church  for  it.  He  went 
with  all  the  nervous  fervor  that  there  was  in  the  labor 
he  had  just  been  going  through,  and  commenced  pour- 
ing himself  out  upon  the  church,  bringing  them  to- 
gether, telling  them  of  their  dead  condition,  setting 
their  sins  in  order  before  them.  But  he  was  in  such 
a  state  of  excitement,  so  far  above  them,  that  nobody 
caught  the  spirit.  They  rather  took  his  exhortations 
as  the  negro  slaves  across  the  river  in  Kentucky  took 
kicks,  —  they  only  crouched  and  looked  sullen,  and 
went  on.  And  when  Synod  came  together,  that  was 
the  state  of  the  church.  They  had  been  on  the  anvil, 
and  with  small  hammer  and  trip-hammer  they  had 
been  pounded  unmercifully. 

I  recall  very  well  one  Sunday  night.  Brother  Snead 
had  had  the  general  care  of  the  meetings,  and  I  was 
appointed  to  preach  on  Sunday  evening.  That  was  a 
sermon  born  out  of  the  extremity  of  desire.  I  had 
preached  several  times,  and  with  no  special  effect ;  but 
there  was  one  person  whose  conversion  had  lingered, 
and  for  whom  my  whole  soul  had  gone  out.  And  in 
the  strong  desire  that  I  had,  I  struck  out  a  plain  and 
quiet  sermon  on  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  I 
went  with  that  sermon  into  the  pulpit  on  that  Sunday 


94  LECTUEES   ON  PREACHING. 

night,  and  began  preaching  it.  It  was  of  the  love  of 
God,  and  the  way  in  which  he  looked  upon  sinners,  — 
his  yearning.  And,  without  any  attempt  to  produce 
feeling,  I  drew  picture  after  picture  and  scene  after 
scene,  until  about  the  middle  of  the  sermon  the  audience 
broke  down,  and  it  was  like  a  rain  on  the  mountains. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  a  great  and  glorious  revival  of 
religion  there.  When  I  came  out  of  the  pulpit,  Brother 
Snead  said,  "My  dear  brother,  you  have  given  them 
sugar  when  you  ought  to  have  given  them,  tartar ! " 

Now,  this  attempting  to  enforce  the  strong  feeling  of 
conviction  and  dread  of  the  wrath  to  come  might  have 
been  wise  under  some  circumstances ;  but  here  was  a 
case  in  which  it  was  manifestly  unwise,  and  was  defeat- 
ing itself,  and  where  a  much  lower  tone  of  feeling 
stood  connected  with  the  production  of  that  which 
was  needed.  As  an  illustration,  take  the  old-fashioned 
way  of  lighting  a  candle.  If  you  have  a  coal  of  fire 
and  blow  gently,  there  will  always  come  a  little  flame 
on  the  coal,  and  you  can  light  your  candle  with 
it;  but  if  a  man  should  take  the  coal  and  give  a 
sudden  and  violent  puff,  he  would  blow  out  the  light 
of  the  coal  and  the  candle  too.  Gentle  feeling  will 
often  stand  more  nearly  connected  with  the  inception 
of  deep  emotion  than  more  intense  and  overpowering 
agitation  will 

Another  thing :  You  can  never  make  people  feel  by 
scolding  them  because  they  don't  feel.  You  can  never 
move  anybody  by  saying,  "Feel!"  Feeling  is  just 
as  much  a  product  of  cause  as  anything  else  in  the 
world.  I  could  sit  down  before  a  piano  and  say,  "  A, 
come  forth  " ;  and  it  won't.  But  if  I  put  my  finger  on 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      95 

the  key  it  will,  and  that  is  the  only  way  to  make  it. 
The  human  soul  is  like  a  harp ;  one  has  but  to  put  his 
hand  to  a  chord  and  it  will  vibrate  to  his  touch,  accord- 
ing as  he  knows  how.  It  is  the  knowing  how  that  you 
are  to  acquire.  It  is  the  very  business  that  you  are 
going  out  into  the  world  for ;  it  is  to  understand  human 
nature  so  that  you  can  touch  the  chords  of  feeling. 

HOW  FEELING  IS  DEVELOPED. 

In  general,  feeling  results  from  the  presentation  of 
some  fact  or  truth  that  has  a  relation  to  the  particular 
feeling  you  wish  to  produce.  If  I  wanted  to  make 
you  weep,  I  would  not  tell  you  an  amusing  story ;  I 
would,  if  I  wanted  to  make  you  laugh,  and  that  story 
had  a  relation  to  laughing.  If  I  wished  to  make  you 
weep,  I  would  tell  you  some  pathetic  incident,  the 
truth  embodied  in  which  had  some  sympathetic  rela- 
tion to  feeling.  Charge  yourself  with  this :  "  If  these 
people  are  to  feel,  I,  as  the  minister  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  am  to  be  the  cause  of  it  by  applying  to  their 
minds  such  treatment,  such  thoughts,  as  stand  con- 
nected with  the  production  of  feeling."  If  they  do  not 
feel,  it  is  because  you  do  not  play  well.  If  they  do 
feel,  it  is  because  you  are  a  master  of  your  business,  — 


USELESSNESS   OF  MERE  EXHORTATION. 

So,  then,  here  is  where  you  come  to  the  folly  of  ex- 
hortation, —  men  exhorting  each  other  day  after  day, 
continually,  to  "feeling,"  to  "duty,"  without  present- 
ing any  new  expression,  without  filling  the  mind  or  the 
imagination,  without  laying  in  fuel  which  is  to  kindle 


96  LECTUEES   ON  PREACHING. 

into  light  and  warmth.  Mere  exhortation  is  as  if  a 
man  should  go  down  the  street  saying,  "  0  money, 
money,  money,  come  to  me,  come  to  me ! "  No,  it  will 
not  come  to  him  thus.  Or  as  if  a  man  should  go  to 
his  studies  and  invoke  mathematics;  that  does  not 
come  by  invocation.  As  you  gain  other  things  by 
playing  the  keys  that  produce  the  Desired  effects,  so 
you  must  do  with  every  step  that  you  gain  in  a  meeting. 
Men  are  so  many  instruments,  and  you  are  a  skillful 
player ;  and  you  will  have  success  just  as  the  Spirit  of 
God  dwelling  in  you  kindles  your  soul  to  that  power, 
to  that  perception  of  truth,  to  that  sympathy  with  it, 
to  that  knowledge  of  men ;  for  the  sense  of  God  brings 
the  sense  of  human  nature.  They  both  lie  in  the  same 
plane,  and  he  that  has  one  will  be  very  apt  to  have  the 
other.  They  train  together.  And  if  you  have  the 
power  of  producing  the  sympathetic  feeling,  it  will  be 
simply  by  applying  the  known  causes  of  that  effect. 
Nothing  is  so  barren,  nothing  so  unprofitable,  as  urging 
men  to  feel,  when  the  shorter  way  is  to  make  them  feel. 

FLIES  IN   THE   OINTMENT. 

Among  the  hindrances,  I  must  mention  the  moths 
and  millers  that  will  be  sure  to  fly  around  your  candle 
just  as  soon  as  you  have  it  lighted.  It  is  almost  im- 
possible that  a  meeting  should  have  any  life  or  power 
in  it,  or  any  degree  of  freedom,  without  producing 
some  very  disagreeable  results.  I  have  had  my  cross 
to  bear  in  this  matter.  It  seemed  as  though  I  never 
was  to  be  left  without  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  without 
somebody  to  disturb  almost  every  prayer-meeting.  Well, 
I  don't  know  why  a  prayer-meeting  should  be  an  excep- 


THE  PKAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      97 

tion  to  every  other  part  of  life.  Perfection  does  n't  belong 
here.  Everything  is  mixed.  Everything  sweet  has  its 
bitter,  every  rose  its  thorn,  and  every  prayer-meeting  its 
"  bummer."  And  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to  it. 
You  must  not  be  too  fastidious,  or  too  easily  thrown  off 
your  guard.  To  give  you  a  biographical  sketch  of  all  the 
illustrious  persons  who  have  spoiled  prayer-meetings  for 
me  would  keep  you  here  till  midnight.  I  have  one  now 
in  my  mind  who  used  occasionally  to  utter  as  brilliant  and 
apposite  sentences  as  I  ever  heard,  and  yet  I  never  heard 
him  make  an  address  in  the  world  that  he  did  not  mar 
and  injure  the  meeting.  It  was  the  occasional  flash  that 
was  good,  but  the  ordinary  statements  that  he  made 
were  inconceivably  bad.  I  recollect  once  a  meeting 
seemed  almost  spoiled,  —  if  anything  could  spoil  it ;  a 
good  meeting  you  never  can  spoil,  when  it  has  real 
heart  and  stamina  to  it.  But  I  recollect  one  of  my  sons 
of  vexation,  when  a  meeting  had  turned  on  the  love  of 
Christ,  and  especially  the  sympathy  of  Christ  with 
those  that  are  feeble  and  striving  to  come  to  a  higher 
life  under  manifold  difficulties,  and  upon  the  great  con- 
solation and  encouragement  there  is  in  persevering,  in 
the  knowledge  that  the  whole  atmosphere  above  you  is 
sympathetic  in  Christ  Jesus.  Just  at  the  end,  after  I 
had  taken  my  hymn-book  to  give  out  the  closing  hymn, 
thinking  I  had  got  that  meeting  safe  out  of  the  reach  of 
everybody,  —  this  man  gets  up  and  says,  "  Why,  breth- 
ren," —  he  had  very  red  hair,  —  "I  sometimes  feel  that 
I  could  put  even  my  red  head  in  Jesus'  bosom  ! "  Well, 
what  could  you  do  ?  Nobody  after  that  could  take  up 
the  thread  of  discourse,  and  you  could  not  go  back  and 
mold  the  meeting  over  again, — what  could  you  do? 


98  LECTURES   ON  PEEACHING. 

By  the  grace  of  God,  nothing ;  a  very  patient,  a  very 
meek  nothing. 

It  is  a  good  idea,  therefore,  to  build  your  meetings 
out  of  such  manful  stuff,  and  to  have  such  a  spirit  of 
courage  inspired  in  your  people  that  they  won't  be 
thrown  off  their  guard  by  infelicities  of  this  kind ;  to 
have  your  meetings  so  tough  that  they  won't  be  hurt  by 
any  such  little  infliction  as  that.  I  had  an  old  white- 
headed  man,  —  I  never  knew  his  name,  nor  cared  to, 
—  but  whenever  there  was  a  little  fervor  he  came  in. 
I  remember  a  horse  which  my  father  bought,  and 
which  ran  away  the  first  day  he  was  put  in  the  chaise. 
The  next  day  he  was  sold  to  a  stage-company,  and  I 
rode  behind  him  down  to  Bethlehem  the  first  time  he 
was  put  on  the  wheel.  He  carried  the  whole  stage 
that  day ;  he  carried  it  out  of  the  road  once  in  a  while, 
and  from  one  side  to  the  other,  with  such  a  burst  that 
it  seemed  as  though  he  would  sweep  everything  before 
him.  He  carried  the  stage  all  the  way  down.  This 
white-haired  old  man  was  like  that  horse ;  he  would 
take  the  meeting  in  his  teeth,  and  rush  away  with  it  in 
this  direction  and  in  that  direction,  and  you  never  knew 
where  you  were !  He  had  fervor,  and  his  prayers  had  a 
perfect  Gulf  Stream  in  them  both  for  speed  and  heat. 
For  a  few  meetings  I  thought  I  had  got  a  great  aux- 
iliary ;  but,  after  a  few  more,  I  found  that  I  had  a  shark 
in  the  net,  and  that  it  was  anything  but  edifying. 

I  had  another  of  these  men  to  whom  is  committed 
the  cultivation  of  the  perseverance  of  the  saints ;  he 
would  talk  half  an  hour,  and  not  get  out  a  dozen  sen- 
tences. He  would  get  up  and  exhort  young  men  in  a 
most  painfully  slow  manner,  and  you  can  imagine  the 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      99 

precious  time  of  the  meeting  going.  Then  I  had  another 
man  who  used  to  assume  a  most  oratorical  position,  and, 
introducing  a  little  narrative,  have  everybody  on  the  tip- 
toe'of  expectation.  But  it  all  went  out  in  puff;  there  was 
nothing  of  it,  no  nub  to  it,  no  anything.  He  would  do 
that  at  almost  every  meeting,  and  sit  down  with  an  air, 
and  wipe  his  mouth,  as  if  he  had  been  Demosthenes. 

Now,  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  such  men  ? 
You  must  do  exactly  as  we  boys  used  to  do  when 
we  were  fishing  off  Cragie's  Bridge  in  Boston.  We 
couldn't  help  it,  —  in  spite  of  everything  we  could 
do,  the  little  perch  would  steal  the  bait,  and  the  big 
fish  would  n't  get  a  chance  at  the  hook.  We  fished 
through  thick  and  thin ;  we  renewed  the  bait  and  kept 
fishing,  and  caught  what  big  ones  we  could,  and  let  the 
little  perch  bite.  You  must  do  the  same,  in  the  main. 
You  must  bear  it ;  but  you  must  have  your  meeting 
tempered  to  survive  such  things. 

DO  NOT  BE  FASTIDIOUS. 

This  I  may  say  also  in  regard  to  another  point,  — 
fastidiousness  with  respect  to  the  form  of  that  which 
is  said  by  men  who  have  good  sense  and  good  feeling  at 
the  bottom,  but  not  the  art  of  polite  delivery.  Peo- 
ple may  say,  "  Oh,  I  wish  nobody  would  speak  but  the 
pastor;  there  is  some  comfort  in  hearing  him  speak; 
but  when  Mr.  So-and-so  gets  up,  what  he  says  is  well 
enough,  but,  dear  me  !  what  grammar ! "  Now,  fastidi- 
ousness is  one  of  the  devil's  imps  that  he  sends  to 
preside  in  prayer-meetings.  The  moment  your  gram- 
mar and  your  literature  are  a  stronger  relish  to  you 
than  the  substance  of  the  thought  or  the  feeling  of  an 


100  LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

honest  man,  that  very  moment  there  is  mischief  in 
the  room ;  you  will  shut  off  the  unpracticed.  Brethren, 
a  man  may  get  up,  and  what  he  says  may  be  said  in 
the  most  oratorical  manner,  and  may  come  home  to 
your  heart  and  imagination,  and  comfort  you,  and  yet 
it  will  not  do  the  church  one  half  so  much  good  as 
to  hear  a  new  man  that  never  spoke,  a  young  man, 
who  shakes  on  his  feet,  to  whom  it  is  a  great  effort  to 
rise,  and  who  makes  a  stammering  speech,  in  which, 
however,  appears  his  adhesion  to  Christ,  or  his  love  for 
the  cause,  or  some  feature  in  his  history.  The  speaking 
of  that  new  man,  who  speaks  so  poorly,  is  worth  more 
to  the  church  than  the  finest  effort  ever  made  by  an 
old  member.  You  have  found  another  man,  you  have 
got  some  more  material.  It  is  more  important  to  rescue 
a  man  from  outside,  and  bring  him  in,  and  build  him 
up  in  the  church,  than  it  is  to  have  gifts  exercised  by 
those  that  are  already  in  it.  You  are  sure  of  them ; 
they  are  safe.  But  the  church  grows  by  the  addition 
of  just  such  new  men. 

THE  NEED   OF  CATHOLICITY. 

Prayer-meetings,  too,  are  apt  to  run  in  particular 
lines.  You  must  make  them  catholic  and  broad.  No 
prayer-meeting  is  truly  Christian  in  the  largest  sense, 
that  is  not  broad  enough  to  have  any  theme  discussed 
or  alluded  to  in  it,  which,  under  God's  providence, 
exercises  the  hearts  of  any  of  his  people.  There  are 
persons  that  come  to  my  prayer-meeting  to  talk  per- 
fectionism. I  believe  in  it,  though  I  think  it  is  ad- 
journed until  after  the  present  sphere.  But  I  am 
never  afraid  that  my  folks  are  going  to  get  too  perfect. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      101 

There  are  some  thoughts  lying  in  that  direction  that 
are  worthy  of  our  hearing ;  for,  if  that  subject  does  not 
rest  on  a  philosophical  basis,  still  it  is  on  a  side  where 
we  certainly  need  to  hear  much.  I  let  them  talk.  I 
encourage  them  to  come.  There  are  some  persons  who 
do  not  believe  in  falling  from  grace ;  but  if  there  is 
a  brother  who  does,  and  who  thinks  he  has  fallen 
from  grace,  and  wants  to  talk  about  it,  I  just  let  him 
bring  it  out.  If  there  is  any  joy,  any  sorrow,  any 
doubt  or  any  scepticism ;  if  there  is  any  disbelieving 
what  you  said  last  Sunday  in  your  sermon ;  if  there 
is  any  disposition,  not  combative,  but  really  manly 
and  kind,  to  traverse  any  of  your  positions,  —  get  it 
out.  Young  men,  become  very  much  attached  to  those 
who  do  not  like  you.  Those  who  do,  will  be  your 
worst  enemies  generally;  they  won't  tell  you  your 
faults.  They  will  let  you  grow  up  into  a  little  god ; 
they  will  let  you  be  the  lump  of  sugar  which  all  the 
brothers  and  sisters  will  stir  around  in  the  sweet  cup 
of  their  meetings  ;  and  "  our  beloved  pastor,"  and  "  what 
our  dear  brother  has  said,"  and  all  those  little  endearing 
phrases,  will  pass  around,  that  do  not  do  you  half  as 
much  good  as  the  rough-hewing  of  some  old  man  or 
young  man  given  to  plain  speaking.  It  may  be  hard 
to  take ;  but  manliness,  broadness,  versatility,  large- 
ness, all-sidedness,  —  these  are  in  the  meeting;  get 
them  out !  When,  therefore,  things  are  brought  in 
that  seem  inchoate, —  they  may  be  so,  and  yet  may 
answer  a  purpose.  Anything  in  the  world  but  regula- 
tion dullness  in  a  prayer-meeting.  Have  life !  Mis- 
takes ?  Meetings  can  bear  mistakes.  Misproportions  ? 
Meetings  can  bear  misproportions.  In  the  statement 


102          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

of  views,  it  is  not  necessary  that  everything  should 
always  be  orthodox.  Men  forget  in  ten  mimites.  As 
whales  take  in  vast  volumes  of  water  and  spurt  it 
out,  but  keep  the  animalculae  in  it  for,  their  food,  so 
four  fifths  of  our  preaching  is  all  squirted  out  again ! 
But  there  are  a  few  things  that  remain  with  everybody. 
In  a  Christian  community  and  a  trained  church  there 
is  a  kind  of  appropriating  instinct ;  and  the  carefulness, 
the  excessive  caution,  that  men  employ,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  on  the  side  of  effeminacy,  not  on  the  side  of  large, 
manly  strength,  which  has  in  itself  safety  and  power 
and  godliness. 

BEGIN  AND  END  PROMPTLY. 

I  have  spoken  thus  far  of  the  Hindrances ;  now  a 
few  words  on  the  Helps. 

Let  all  prayer-meetings  begin  with  very  great 
promptness.  No  matter  if  there  is  not  another  person 
in  the  room ;  begin  and  sing  yourself.  I  should  say 
that  among  the  mechanical  helps  in  prayer-meet- 
ings are  brevity,  and  prompt  beginning  and  ending 
at  the  time  appointed.  In  general,  short  meetings, 
half-hour  prayer-meetings,  are  better  than  those  an 
hour  long.  An  hour  meeting  is  incomparably  better 
than  one  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  except  in  very  extraor- 
dinary circumstances.  An  hour  is  the  average  length. 
I  am  very  particular  to  begin  at  the  moment  appointed, 
and  to  end  within  the  hour.  It  is  not  once  in  ten 
times  that  I  will  suffer  it  to  go  over  that  period,  and 
then  only  because  there  is  something  special  or  unusual. 
Do  not  let  a  meeting  drag. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      103 


CULTIVATE  THE   SOCIAL  ELEMENT. 

Next,  no  prayer-meeting  is  good  that  has  not  a  cur- 
rent to  it,  that  has  not  momentum.  Keep  the  people  do- 
ing something.  Suppose  that  every  time  you  go  into 
a  prayer-meeting  you  walk  up  in  a  very  solemn  way, 
looking  at  nobody  and  speaking  to  nobody.  You  sit 
down  in  your  chair,  and  open  the  Bible,  and  read  a 
whole  chapter  that  may  have  twenty  different  thoughts 
and  subjects  in  it,  with  no  earthly  reason  of  adaptation 
except  that  chapters  are  generally  read  before  meetings. 
Then  you  make  a  prayer,  which  is  good  enough  in  its 
way,  but  nothing  special ;  then  you  sing  a  hymn,  and 
then  you  call  on  Deacon  So-and-so  to  make  a  prayer, 
and  then  you  sing  another  hymn,  and  then  say, 
"  Brethren,  the  meeting  is  thrown  open ;  if  anybody 
has  anything  to  say,  let  him  speak  on."  Then  comes 
the  great  pause,  and  as  the  brethren  have  nothing  more 
to  say,  "  We  will  close  with  such  a  hymn,"  and  that  is 
the  end  of  the  prayer-meeting.  Now,  suppose  instead 
of  that,  when  a  minister  comes  into  his  prayer-meeting, 
he  speaks  to  the  folks  at  the  door,  shakes  hands  with 
the  little  children  that  are  there,  shows  himself  among 
the  people,  and  goes  naturally  about,  familiarly,  genially, 
without  a  bit  of  the  priest  about  him,  the  "awful 
responsibility "  air  all  gone,  —  why,  people's  minds 
are  limber !  they  spring  up !  When  you  come  into  a 
prayer-meeting  room,  you  are  all  exhorted  to  feel  that 
you  are  coming  into  the  presence  of  God.  Well,  is 
God  a  scarecrow  ?  Is  God  a  devouring  fire  to  the  Chris- 
tian ?  Was  that  the  effect  that  Christ's  presence  pro- 
duced when  he  came  into  a  crowd  ?  As  I  read  it,  when 


104          LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

he  came  anywhere,  there  was  sunshine.  Everybody 
dropped  everything  else  and  rushed  to  him.  There 
was  an  almost  audacious  familiarity  with  him.  Every- 
body seemed  to  have  a  new  impetus  in  life ;  people's 
blood  went  tingling  through  their  bodies  at  the  very 
sight  of  him.  His  was  a  joy-inspiring,  as  well  as  a 
conscience-piercing,  presence  and  nature.  When  you 
put  a  pressure  of  the  kind  I  have  just  mentioned  upon 
people,  you  do  not  inspire  veneration,  but  you  do 
repress  all  those  genial,  tender,  and  sympathetic  feelings 
out  of  which  a  social  meeting  is  to  derive  its  forces. 
So,  in  coming  into  your  meeting,  make  it  as  social  as 
you  possibly  can. 

SMALL   ROOMS   THE  BEST. 

In  general,  meetings  are  held  in  rooms  too  large  for 
them.  A  chamber  prayer-meeting  is  better  than  a 
prayer-meeting  in  a  large  room,  by  reason  of  the  very 
force  of  contiguity.  But  if  only  a  large  room  can  be 
had,  and  only  a  few  people  come,  gather  the  few 
together  in  clusters  so  that  they  are  near  to  each  other ; 
then,  in  opening  the  meeting,  have  it  arranged  in  your 
own  mind  in  such  a  way  that  service  shall  follow 
service  with  rapidity,  —  short  prayers,  short  hymns,  and 
movement,  momentum.  Never  let  there  be  a  moment's 
pause ;  be  yourself  ready  to  fill  the  gap  if  others  do 
not ;  push  the  meeting  right  through,  from .  beginning 
to  end.  There  is  a  great  deal  arising  from  the  mo- 
mentum which  a  meeting  generates. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      105 


LET  THERE   BE  VARIETY. 

There  is  no  earthly  reason  why  prayer-meetings 
should  be  twice  alike,  —  I  mean  in  form.  Suppose  that 
one  week  it  is  a  prayer  and  conference  meeting ;  that  is 
to  say,  prayer  predominating,  and  conference  taking  the 
minor  part.  The  next  week  let  it  be  just  the  reverse, 
—  conference  predominating,  and  prayer  being  compara- 
tively in  the  minority.  Then,  the  next  week,  let  it  be 
a  praise  meeting.  What  is  that  ?  A  meeting  in  which 
most  of  the  time  is  filled  up  with  singing,  and  not  with 
either  prayer  .or  conference.  Make  the  most  of  your 
materials  in  their  diversity.  Sometimes  you  will 
draw  out  one  side  of  your  congregation,  and  sometimes 
another  side.  Study  to  have  ever  something  differ- 
ent; not  necessarily  marked  out  and  prescribed  with 
authority,  so  that  it  must  inevitably  be  just  that,  with- 
out any  spontaneity  in  the  meeting ;  but  be  prepared  to 
make  the  meeting,  unless  the  meeting  makes  itself. 

IMPORTANCE   OF   SINGING. 

In  doing  this,  singing  is  of  transcendent  importance. 
Persons  say,  "What  shall  I  do  in  a  prayer-meeting 
if  I  have  nobody  that  knows  how  to  speak  ? "  Sing  a 
hymn.  "Well,  suppose  I  have  nobody  that  knows 
how  to  pray,  how  shall  I  get  along  with  that  ? "  Sing 
a  hymn..  "Well,  but  suppose  I  have  no  persons  that 
have  any  of  the  gifts  of  sympathy,  how  shall  I  touch 
them?"  Through  hymns.  "Suppose  I  am  myself 
slow  of  speech  ? "  Give  out  hymns.  There  is  not  a 
single  feeling  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  human 
nature  that  has  not  been  struck  a  thousand  times  by 

5* 


106  LECTUEES  ON  PKEACHING. 

singing  hymns.  Hymns  have  this  peculiarity,  that 
they  are  the  most  glowing  inspirations  which  God  gives 
to  his  people  in  these  later  days,  crystallized  and  pre- 
served, so  that  they  may  by  sympathy  impart  the  feeling 
which  they  express.  As  long  as  a  man  has  a  good 
hymn-book  and  knowledge  how  to  use  it,  there  is  no 
reason  why  a  meeting  should  not  be  thoroughly  edify- 
ing and  good. 

SUMMING  UP. 

One  word  in  closing.  All  these  multitudinous  de- 
tails that  I  have  mentioned,  you  perhaps, may  not  carry 
away  with  you  in  your  memory;  but  when  you  go 
into  your  respective  fields  of  labor,  and  one  difficulty 
after  another  comes  up,  you  may  then  possibly  re- 
member these  suggestions.  I  would  sum  them  all  up 
in  this :  Do  not  be  discouraged  because  your  field  is 
hard  and  the  people  scattered,  because  the  caliber  of 
your  people  is  small,  because  the  meetings  are  dull  and 
hard,  because  the  work  is  severe.  Your  reward  will  be 
in  proportion  to  your  skill  and  your  endurance.  Ee- 
member,  a  prayer-meeting  develops  piety  under  the  in- 
fluence of  social  enthusiasm,  and  there  is  in  social 
enthusiasm  a  power  that  no  mar;  can  imagine  who  has 
not  tried  it. 

Oh,  what  waste  there  is  !  What  unused  power  there 
is  in  the  social  relations  of  men  in  churches  that  is 
hardly  suspected,  and  that  never  comes  out  except  in 
times  of  revival !  And  then  it  is  set  down  to  the 
credit  of  "  the  Divine  Spirit "  ;  as  if  that  did  not  abide 
in  men  ever  and  always !  Why  is  it  that,  when  I  use 
guano,  I  get  good  crops  ?  "  Why,  that  is  the  Divine 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      107 

Providence,"  men  say.  Divine  Providence !  Yes ;  and 
every  time  you  use  guano,  Divine  Providence  will  do 
the  same  thing.  And  when  there  is  a  revival,  that  is, 
when  you  are  awake,  and  when  your  life  is  real  and  full 
and  joyous,  and  you  have  liberty  of  expression,  then 
you  will  know  that  meetings  may  mount  up  into  rap- 
ture. You  have  such  power  and  blessedness  in  them 
that  you  get  the  testimony  of  God  to  a  secret  power 
which  you  may  develop  all  the  year  round.  The  main- 
spring of  the  prayer-meeting  must  always  be  the  social 
dement,  the  subtle  power  of  sympathy.  Work  for  that, 
and  by  God's  blessing  you  will  work  a  right  end. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 
Q.  Suppose  you  give  out  a  hymn,  and  there  is  nobody  to  sing  it  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Sing  yourself. 

Q.   But  suppose  you  cannot  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  That  is  a  point  on  which  I  ought  to 
have  spoken.  Every  minister  who  is  ordained  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  is  obliged  to  know  music.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  qualification  of  the  priesthood  in  that 
church,  and  it  ought  to  be  so  in  our  churches.  When 
you  have  got  through  examining  a  man  on  all  didactic 
theology,  let  him  sing.  It  is  far  more  important  with 
us  than  it  is  in  the  hierarchical  church,  for  there  the 
minister  intones,  and  does  not  sing;  but  you  have  to 
sing.  When  you  get  to  the  point  where  bad  rhetoric 
and  bad  music  meet,  there  is  intoning.  Now,  in  all 
new  settlements,  in  visiting  the  sick  you  will  be  ex- 
pected to  sing ;  in  your  prayer-meetings  you  will  have 
to  "set  the  tune."  If  you  haven't  learned  how  to 


108          LECTUEES  ON  PEEACHING. 

sing,  and  are  going  West,  or  into  new  settlements,  let 
one  of  the  first  things  you  learn  be  how  to  "  raise  "  a 
tune.  And,  if  you  can't  sing,  "  make  a  joyful  noise." 

Q.  How  as  to  attitudes  in  prayer,  whether  in  the  pulpit  or  the 
prayer-meeting  ? 

MR.  BEECHEB.  —  It  is  purely  a  matter  of  choice.  Some 
persons  in  the  pulpit  are  trained  to  pray  standing,  —  I 
have  been.  I  find  it  is  natural  to  me.  Others  —  and 
almost  always  in  the  Methodist  Church  —  kneel  for 
prayers  ;  but  it  would  be  very  awkward  for  me.  I  do 
not  know  that  there*  is  any  advantage  in  one  attitude 
over  the  other.  The  best  prayer-meetings  I  ever  had  in 
my  early  parishes  were  those  that  came  along  after  I  had 
got  through  with  the  main  one.  That  is,  when  we  had 
finished  the  regulation  prayer-meeting,  and  there  was 
something  that  interested  the  folks,  and  we  got  around 
the  stove,  a  dozen  or  fifteen  of  us,  and  fell  to  talking 
about  something.  Some  of  those  who  were  not  so  much 
interested  stood  off  on  the  edge,  and  were  looking  over 
the  hymn-book  and  humming  a  tune.  Then  we  all 
joined,  and  sang  the  tune,  and  thus  we  had  a  meeting. 
Time  and  again  they  have  said,  "  Now  we  have  had  our 
meeting."  The  simple  reason  of  it  was,  we  had  had 
the  real,  free,  spontaneous,  social  elements,  kindling 
religious  fervor  and  feeling. 

Now,  in  prayer,  if  a  man  wants  to  stand,  let  him 
stand,  if  that  be  natural  to  him.  I  suspect  that  the 
difference  between  kneeling  and  standing  is  not  so 
great  but  that  good  prayers  get  up  there  about  alike. 

Q.  What  about  the  choice  of  subjects  for  remarks  1 

MB.  BEECHEE. —  Of  course,  there  are  all  those  subjects 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      109 

that  belong  to  the  foundation  of  Christian  experience 
and  Christian  character;  but  then,  the  providence  of 
God  is  choosing  subjects  for  you  all  the  while,  in  your 
village,  in  your  town,  —  the  festivities  in  this  family, 
the  funeral  ceremonies  in  that  family,  the  misfortunes 
of  this  brother,  the  success  of  that  one,  the  going  out 
of  a  young  man  to  preach  or  to  college,  the  children 
and  the  mortality  among  them,  the  losses  of  men.  For 
instance,  if  I  had  a  prayer-meeting  here  in  certain  cir- 
cles, I  would  make  the  failure  of  a  banking-house  the 
subject  of  a  prayer-meeting,  and  the  text,  "  Lay  up  your 
treasures  in  heaven,  where  moth  or  rust  cannot  corrupt, 
nor  thieves  break  through  and  steal."  Such  themes, 
things  that  people  were  feeling  before  they  came  into 
meeting,  things  that  they  really  want  some  comfort  or 
some  light  about,  —  those  are  the  things  from  which  you 
can  get  a  religious  influence.  Sometimes  they  will  take 
you  out  of  the  sphere  of  strictly  religious  themes,  but 
they  will  not  be  less  profitable  on  that  account.  It  is 
said,  we  ought  not  to  introduce  secular  topics  into  the 
church.  I  say,  take  any  secular  topic  you  can  find,  and 
bring  it  into  the  church,  and  make  it  redolent  of  Chris- 
tian ethics,  and  then  carry  it  out  again  into  its  place. 
If  you  bring  a  thing  into  the  church,  and  then  turn  it 
out  of  doors  again,  it  goes  out  with  a  new  coat  on. 

Q.  What  do  you  say  in  reference  to  the  three-minute  rule  for 
prayers  in  prayer-meeting  1 

MR,  BEECHER.  —  It  is  like  all  mere  mechanical  rules  : 
it  answers  a  good  purpose  to  begin  with,  but  I  should 
slack  off  all  such  rules  just  as  soon  as  the  people  got 
the  idea  in  their  heads.  You  must  remember  you  have 


110  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

got  an  intelligent  people.  Do  not  despise  common 
folks.  You  can  manage  an  average  American  audience ; 
you  can  make  them  learn  to  do  almost  anything.  Just 
throw  yourself  upon  them ;  give  them  to  understand  that 
you  expect  good  judgment  of  them.  I  remember  at  a 
camp-meeting  in  Logansport,  Indiana,  on  a  Sunday, 
there  were  five  thousand  people  present,  and  no' police. 
The  rule  out  there  is  to  have  camp-meetings  amply 
policed.  I  got  up  in  the  desk  and  said,  "  Friends,  there 
are  five  thousand  of  you  here  to-day ;  it  is  very  hot 
and  dusty,  there  is  very  little  water,  the  children  will 
be  fretful,  mothers  may  be  tired,  it  is  feared  that  there 
may  be  trouble.  Now  we  have  n't  a  single  watchman 
or  policeman  on  this  ground.  If  there  is  good  order 
here  to-day,  you  will  have  to  keep  it."  I  had  no  occa- 
sion to  say  another  word.  Everybody  took  care  of  him- 
self. In  a  prayer-meeting  it  is  pretty  easy  to  let  them 
understand  that  they  must  be  short ;  a  little  manage- 
ment will  bring  them  around,  and  they  will  be  short, 
and  fervent,  and  to  the  point. 

When  you  go  into  a  new  field,  —  a  Sunday-school 
convention,  for  instance,  —  and  have  to  start  with  raw 
material,  then  it  is  that  you  need  rules  for  three-minute 
prayers  and  speeches,  and  sometimes  they  will  be 
shorter  than  three  minutes.  I  don't  think  it  took  the 
publican  three  minutes  to  say,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me 
a  sinner ! "  and  yet  it  was  an  admirable  prayer. 

Q.   Would  you  advise  the  ladies  to  speak  and  pray  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  would. 

Q.   Suppose  they  would  n't  do  it  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  That  is  just  my  case  exactly.  I  bear 
their  silence. 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      Ill 

Q.  What  do  you  think  of  the  custom  of  announcing  subjects 
beforehand  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  don't  like  it.  I  think  there  may 
be  exceptional  cases.  During  all  my  ministry  I  have 
refused  with  the  utmost  obstinacy  to  tell  what  I  was 
going  to  preach  on,  even  when  it  was  going  to  be  a 
very  important  subject.  If  you  advertise  when  you 
are  going  to  preach  something  that  is  worth  hearing, 
people  will  take  it  for  granted  that,  when  you  do  not 
advertise,  your  preaching  is  to  be  all  filling  up.  It  will 
be  well  to  make  a  few  rules  like  this :  If  it  is  a  wet 
day,  do  your  very  best;  make  your  wet-day  sermons 
better  than  any  other,  even  if  it  kills  you.  And  never 
repeat  them,  no  matter  how  much  those  who  were  not 
there  may  want  to  hear  them.  If  you  have  an  impor- 
tant subject,  never  advertise  it;  and  the  result  will  be 
that  people  will  say,  "  If  you  get  those  fine  sermons, 
you  must  go  all  the  time,  and  take  what  he  gives  you." 
It  will  produce  the  tendency  to  go  always. 

The  gentleman  who  asked  the  last  question  said  :  "  My  ques- 
tion was  misunderstood.  It  was  with  reference  to  announcing  a 
subject  in  the  prayer-meeting,  so  that  people  may  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  think  about  it." 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  beg  pardon.  Sometimes  I  should 
do  it,  and  sometimes  I  should  not.  I  should  never  do 
twice  alike  if  I  could  help  it. 

Q.  You  speak  about  filling  up  the  gaps  and  having  no  pauses. 
Might  not  sometimes  silent  prayers  of  a  minute  or  two  have  a 
good  effect? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  0  yes,  if  you  do  it  on  purpose. 
This  makes  a  great  difference.  When  Eandolph  was 
asked  by  a  man,  "  Mr.  Eandolph,  how  is  it  that  you  con- 


112  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

trive  such  pauses  in  your  discourses  ?  They  are  tremen- 
dously effective."  "  Pauses  ? "  said  Mr.  Randolph  ;  "  I 
pause  because  I  have  nothing  to  say."  The  difficulty 
in  prayer-meetings  is,  that  those  pauses  are  because 
people  have  nothing  to  say,  and  the  effect  is  tremen- 
dous, —  but  in  the  wrong  direction. 

Q.  Would  you  always  read  a  passage  from  the  Scriptures  in 
opening  a  prayer-meeting  ? 

MR.  BEECIIER.  —  No,  I  should  not.  I  very  seldom 
open  my  prayer-meetings  in  that  way.  I  had  far 
rather  bring  it  in  from  time  to  time.  The  Scripture, 
you  know,  is  an  encyclopedia.  If  a  man  should  sit 
down  and  read  an  encyclopedia  page  by  page,  without 
any  regard  to  subject  or  occasion,  he  would  do  what  is 
often  done  in  reading  the  Bible.  If  I  have  any  theme 
that  I  want  to  speak  upon,  I  make  up  my  mind  just 
about  what  group  of  passages  bear  on  the  matter  I  am 
to  take  in  hand.  I  find  my  place,  and  lay  the  Bible 
down  close  by,  and  don't  let  the  folks  know  I  am 
going  to  use  it.  I  start  the  meeting  and  throw  out 
that  topic ;  and  if  it  takes,  and  is  congenial,  and  the 
audience  open  here  and  there  and  express  themselves, 
and  the  prayers  run  in  that  channel,  I  can  take  up  my 
Bible,  and  say,  "  Brethren,  here,  see  what  is  said  here  "  ; 
and  I  read  those  passages  I  had  selected,  and  let  them 
observe  how  they  illustrate,  corroborate,  or  refute,  as 
the  case  may  be. 

Q.  "Would  you  call  upon  the  young  people  of  your  meeting 
who  may  want  to  speak,  but  are  diffident  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  would.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  them 
to  have  an  exercise-meeting  of  their  own  where,  among 


THE  PRAYER-MEETING  :  ITS  HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES.      113 

themselves,  they  can  break  down  bashfulness  and  build 
up  confidence,  familiarity ;  and  then,  in  easy  and  gentle 
methods,  let  them  also  exercise  their  gifts  in  the  larger 
meetings. 

Q.  Would  you  generally  lead  your  own  prayer-meeting,  as 
pastor  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  think  that  every  pastor  ought  to 
lead  one  prayer-meeting  a  week  in  his  church,  no  mat- 
ter how  many  others  there  are.  It  is  his  drill-meeting. 
It  is  the  time  when  he  goes  into  the  very  Holy  of 
Holies,  among  his  people.  It  is  the  time  above  all 
others  when  he  lays  his  hand  on  the  very  palpitating 
heart  of  his  people.  He  cannot  afford,  for  his  own 
sake  as  a  preacher,  nor  for  that  of  the  work  in  the 
church,  not  to  be  present  every  week,  and  be  in  the 
very  heart  of  it. 

Q.  Do  you  speak  generally  before  the  meetings,  or  during 
them? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Sometimes  one,  sometimes  the  other. 
If  people  come  in  and  seem  to  have  no  spirit  or  fire,  I 
usually  open  with  the  first  prayer  myself,  especially 
when  my  heart  is  full,  and  bring  them  into  kindling 
sympathy  with  me,  and  through  me  with  God.  Or,  at 
other  times,  if  I  see  signs  of  interest  and  feeling,  I  let 
them  lead  off,  sometimes  let  them  introduce  the  topic ; 
and,  if  there  is  occasion,  I  close  the  meeting  myself 
with  prayer,  so  as  to  sum  up  all  the  facts  and  give  them 
the  last  direction.  The  rule  should  be,  never  use  any 
one  method  all  the  time. 


V. 

RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WOKSHIP. 

USIC  is  one  of  the  most  important  auxili- 
aries of  the  preacher.  I  do  not  hold  those 
things  alone  to  be  auxiliary  which  have  an 
apparent  and  an  immediate  bearing  on  the 
sermon  as  such;  but,  as  I  have  before  explained  to  you, 
the  sermon  is  only  one  element  of  the  whole  movement, 
and  the  preacher  should  develop  the  course  in  a  kind  of 
unity,  the  sermon  being  a  constituent  part,  and  perhaps 
the  central  and  the  grand  element.  Music  comes,  I 
think,  in  its  capacity  of  doing  good,  next  to  preaching. 
Its  power  is  as  yet  a  thing  undeveloped.  Consider,  for 
instance,  what  our  impressions  were  as  to  the  avail- 
ability of  music  in  the  Sunday-school  twenty-five  or 
thirty  years  ago,  and  compare  the  Sunday-schools  of 
to-day  with  those  of  that  period.  What  would  our 
schools  be,  if  you  should  drop  out  of  them  bodily  the 
music  of  the  schools  ?  They  would  almost  dissolve  and 
vanish.  It  is  the  invisible  chain  which  holds  them 
together  and  animates  them ;  and  there  is  a  power  in 
music  to  reach,  to  direct,  to  comfort  the  feelings  of  the 
Christian's  heart,  which  is,  comparatively  speaking,  yet 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO   WORSHIP.  115 

undreamed  of.  In  the  churches  where  liturgical  forms 
prevail,  it  becomes  necessary  that  the  minister,  as  an 
administrator,  should  have  some  degree  of  consideration 
for  music,  without  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  ren- 
der the  liturgical  service ;  but  in  those  churches  which 
disallow  a  service  and  make  everything  extempora- 
neous, how  seldom  do  we  find  a  man  who  is  able  in 
preaching,  and  at  the  same  time  considerate  and  ear- 
nest and  zealous  on  the  subject  of  music !  The  com- 
plaint which  I  hear  from  conductors  of  music  is,  that 
there  is  no  person  in  the  congregation  so  indifferent  to 
the  cultivation  of  music  as  the  minister.  Now  and  then 
there  is  an  exception;  but  generally  the  minister  is 
glad  to  have  a  conductor  who  will  take  the  whole 
responsibility  from  his  shoulders ;  and  then,  so  that 
there  be  quiet  in  the  choir  and  no  disturbance  in  the 
congregation,  he  does  not  trouble  himself  any  more 
about  the  matter. 

THE  MINISTER'S  DUTY. 

Now,  every  minister  not  only  should  be  able  upon  oc- 
casion to  conduct  musical  service,  but  he  should  make 
it  a  part  of  his  cure,  his  anxiety  in  the  development  of 
the  religious  life  of  his  congregation,  to  have  music  not 
only  good,  but  increasingly  good ;  and  he  should  devote 
his  time  and  energy  to  it,  just  as  he  would  to  the  de- 
velopment of  any  topic  for  discourse.  Music  is  itself 
an  agent  in  affecting,  not  so  much  the  understanding,  as 
that  part  of  man's  nature  which  the  sermon  usually  leaves 
comparatively  barren.  Now,  it  is  true  of  the  Eoman 
service,  and  to  a  great  extent  of  the  Episcopal  service, 
that  it  touches  the  devout  imagination ;  that  it  reaches 


116          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

toward,  if  it  does  not  actually  inspire,  veneration  and 
awe ;  that  it  does  feel  for  the  chords  whose  response  is 
worship.  Nothing  is  more  frequent,  therefore,  than  to 
see  persons  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the  Quaker 
faith,  or  the  plain  faith  of  our  fathers,  and  their  plainer 
worship,  their  barren  worship  almost,  going  over  to 
those  churches,  and  explaining  it  not  on  doctrinal 
grounds,  or  grounds  of  ecclesiastical  affinity,  but  sim- 
ply that  they  feel  the  need  of  a  worshiping  element, 
which  is  provided  for  them  there,  and  not  with  us.  In- 
deed, if  I  were  to  say  what  was  the  marked,  the  charac- 
teristic, fault  of  congregational  churches,  whether  Bap- 
tist, or  Presbyterian,  or  Congregational,  I  should  say  it 
was  the  almost  entire  non-provision  for  the  element  of 
worship.  There  is  nothing  in  their  economy  that  pro- 
vides for  it  to  any  considerable  extent.  It  depends 
upon  good  fortune  whether  you  have  a  pastor  who  has 
a  natural  genius  for  devotion.  If  you  have  not,  there 
is  no  other  provision  for  it ;  nor  is  there  any  source 
within  our  reach  from  which  it  can  be  derived,  aside 
from  the  mere  emotion  of  the  man  who  conducts  the 
public  worship. 

MUSIC,  THE  PREACHER'S  PRIME  MINISTER. 

There  is  no  instrumentality  that  I  know  of,  except 
that  of  music.  It  is  the  function  of  music  to  begin 
at  the  point  at  which  the  sermon  ends.  That  instructs, 
that  incites  to  emotion  through  the  reason.  Now 
comes  music,  following  it  up  and  inciting  to  emotion 
through  the  imagination,  through  the  taste,  through 
the  feelings ;  and  it  takes  the  same  truths  which  may 
have  been  expressed  dogmatically.  The  truths  which 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  117 

have  taken  on  intellectual  forms,  and  satisfied  all  that 
part  of  the  mind,  are  now  rendered  substantial  by  song, 
and  fill  up  and  satisfy  all  the  other  demands  of  the 
mind,  making  a  round  and  complete  work.  It  is  very 
rare  that,  in  any  one  discourse  or  in  any  day's  dis- 
coursing, a  man  is  so  gifted  as  to  be  able  to  reach 
through  the  reason  to  the  great  foundation  chords  of 
feeling  in  the  human  soul.  It  is  very  rare  that  a  man 
gets  through  a  day  in  giving  out  well-selected  hymns, 
without  reaching  those  chords  through  the  spiritual 
songs,  if  they  are  rightly  administered.  And  in  our 
churches,  above  all  others,  this  is  necessary,  in  order 
to  mend  that  barrenness,  that  want  of  provision  for 
the  aesthetic  feeling,  the  fancy  and  the  imagination 
and  the  more  facile  emotions,  which  are  not  provid- 
ed for  by  any  framework  furnished  to  the  preacher, 
and  which,  according  to  his  various  abilities  and  en- 
dowments or  moods,  circumstances  may  or  may  not 
have  partially  provided  for  in  him.  But,  if  he  were  a 
Shakespeare,  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  living,  twice 
a  day  for  fifty-two  Sabbaths  of  the  year,  to  stand  with 
such  plenary  power  and  originality  as  to  meet  all 
those  wants  of  men  himself,  unsuccored  and  unhelped. 
And  his  auxiliary,  if  he  knows  the  provision  made  for 
him,  his  grand  auxiliary,  the  prime  minister  of  the 
preacher,  is  music. 

CHURCH  MUSIC,  —  THE  ORGAN. 

I  shall  speak,  then,  of  music  in  the  church,  in  social 
relations,  in  the  prayer-meeting.  As  to  church  music, 
there  first  arises  the  question  of  instrumental  music. 
Where  instrumental  music  is  introduced  for  the  pur- 


118          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

pose,  for  instance,  of  giving  tone  and  time,  —  where  it  is 
a  mere  auxiliary  of  that  kind,  it  is  not  without  its  uses. 
Even  so  poor  as  are  the  country  provisions  of  flute, 
violin,  and  bass-viol,  they  are  not  to  be  despised.  There 
is  great  help  in  them.  But  now,  in  the  growing  intel- 
ligence and  taste  and  wealth  of  our  country,  the  old 
prejudices  against  instrumental  music  having  for  the 
most  part  quite  died  out,  the  organ  is  distinctively  the 
instrument  which  is  employed  in  all  our  churches. 
And,  happily,  we  now  have  so  many  organ-builders,  and 
the  competition  is  such,  that  the  church  must  be  very 
poor  that  cannot  provide  for  itself  an  organ  in  some 
degree  commensurate  with  its  actual  wants.  I  would 
not  be  thought  unduly  enthusiastic  in  speaking  of  this 
instrument,  which  I  look  upon  as  an  historian  looks 
upon  a  great  nation  that  through  a  thousand  years 
has  been  developed  by  providential  events  and  educ- 
tions, until  it  has  reached  a  place  in  which  it  stands 
manifestly  a  prime,  a  divine  power  in  the  world.  I  look 
upon  the  history  and  the  development  of  the  organ  for 
Christian  uses  as  a  sublime  instance  of  the  guiding  hand 
of  God's  providence.  It  is  the  most  complex  of  all 
instruments,  it  is  the  most  harmonious  of  all,  it  is 
the  grandest  of  all.  Beginning  far  back,  growing  as 
things  grow  which  have  great  and  final  uses,  growing 
little  by  little,  it  has  come  now  to  stand,  I  think, 
immeasurably,  transcendently,  above  every  other  in- 
strument, and  not  only  that,  but  above  every  combina- 
tion of  instruments :  for,  although  you  may  obtain  cer- 
tain effects,  certain  movements,  and  a  kind  of  lifelike 
elasticity  from  orchestral  performances  ;  although  there 
are  sinuous  and  arrowy  elements  in  them,  and  there 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  119 

is  a  certain  spirit  of  personal  enthusiasm  inspired  by 
them,  where  they  are  carried  to  a  very  high  extent  of 
culture,  as  in  those  foreign  bands  that  visited  us  last 
season  for  the  Boston  Jubilee,  or  in  our  own  Thomas's 
orchestra ;  although,  in  rare  exceptions,  you  can  combine 
instruments  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  some  things  which 
the  organ  cannot  do,  —  yet  the  finest  orchestra  that 
ever  stood  on  earth,  compared  on  the  whole  with  the 
organ,  is  manifestly  its  inferior.  No  orchestra  that  ever 
existed  had  the  breadth,  the  majesty,  the  grandeur,  that 
belong  to  this  prince  of  instruments.  It  is  true  that 
now,  by  reason  of  comparatively  recent  improvements 
in  the  construction  of  the  organ,  it  can  be  played  as 
rapidly  as  the  piano  can,  but  only  its  upper  or  what 
are  called  its  "  fancy "  stops  will  bear  any  such  hand- 
ling as  that.  For  the  organ  means  majesty ;  it  means 
grandeur.  It  means  sweetness,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is 
sweetness  in  power,  like  the  bubbling  crests  of  waves 
on  the  ocean.  "Whatever  it  has  of  sweetness,  of  fine- 
ness, or  of  delicacy,  there  is,  moreover,  an  under-power 
that  is  like  the  sea  itself.  And  I  thank  God  a  thou- 
sand times  a  year,  when  I  see  how  many  things  taste 
and  the  social  elements  have  stolen  from  religion,  and 
I  turn  to  this  one  solitary  exception  and  know  that 
there  is  left  to  religion,  as  peculiarly  its  own,  at  least 
the  organ,  —  the  grandest  thing  that  ever  was  thought 
of  or  combined  in  human  ingenuity.  Kunning  through 
all  the  various  qualities  of  tone,  as  soft  and  as  sweet 
as  the  song-sparrow  (which  is  the  sweetest  bird 
that  sings),  and  in  its  complexity  rising  through  all 
gradations,  imitating  almost  everything  that  is  known 
of  sounds  on  earth,  it  expresses  at  last  the  very  thun- 


120          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

der  and  the  earthquake,  and  almost  the  final  trumpet 
itself! 

FUNCTION  OF  THE  ORGAN,  —  THE   OPENING. 

What,  then,  has  the  organ  to  do  in  the  church  ? 
Usually,  when  we  enter  churches,  we  are  greeted  at 
once  with  the  sound  of  the  organ.  What  is  the  first 
thing  ideally  ?  Under  the  hand  of  a  master  who  is 
in  sympathy  with  the  ends  and  the  economy  of  the 
church,  what  is  the  prime  function  of  the  organ  ?  A 
great  many  of  you  will  say,  "  I  don't  know  exactly 
what.  It  is  the  custom  always  to  play  when  the  peo- 
ple are  coming  into  church,  or  to  begin  the  service 
with  the  organ."  What  for  ?  Why  do  they  begin  the 
service  with  the  organ  ?  What  uses  do  you  yourselves 
conceive  in  it  ?  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  about 
it.  I  think  that  when  the  family  comes  to  church, 
having  been  hurried  and  flurried  in  getting  the  children 
ready,  —  when  the  little  brood  have  been  looked  after, 
and  the  five  or  the  six  are  combed  and  curled  and 
hooked  and  shoed,  and  all  got  in  order,  the  house  shut 
up  and  secure,  and  the  little  throng  safely  housed 
in  the  pew,  —  the  mind  all  fluttered  with  those  sweet 
domestic  cares,  —  it  is  a  great  relief  if  something  can 
quietly,  imperceptibly,  smooth  those  cares  away.  Some 
come  from  their  houses,  heavy  with  the  lassitude  of 
oversleeping  on  Saturday  night  and  Sunday  morning. 
Having  been  excessively  pressed  during  the  week,  they 
get  up  drowsy  and  sleepy,  eat  their  nine  o'clock  or  ten 
o'clock  breakfast,  come  away  to  church,  and  are  spent. 
There  is  nothing  in  them.  Others  come  in,  frivolous 
and  gay  and  genial. 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  121 

If  there  were  any  such-  thing  possible  as  that,  the  mo- 
ment they  passed  the  threshold,  you  could  roll  down  a 
curtain  behind  them,  so  that  all  the  world  should  dis- 
appear and  be  forgotten,  and  so  that  care  should  fall 
behind,  and  dullness  and  weariness  and  sorrow,  and 
all  doubts  and  all  fears,  should  vanish,  —  if  'it  were 
possible  to  make  the  door  of  the  cathedral  or  of  the 
church  a  screen  through  which  should  come  the  fresh, 
living,  immortal  soul,  but  none  of  its  drudgeries  or 
cares,  how  blessed  would  that  be  ! 

Now,  that  is  what  the  organ  undertakes,  or  should  un- 
dertake, to  do.  It  should  take  up  the  congregation  and 
wash  them  clean  in  sound.  It  should  disperse  all  these 
secular  and  worldly  impressions,  associations,  thoughts, 
and  feelings,  and  lift  them  up  into  the  esthetic,  —  the 
imaginative.  "  Very  well ;  but  is  that  worship  ?  is  that 
religion  ? "  No,  but  it  is  that  state  of  mind  out  of 
which  comes,  more  easily  than  from  any  other,  the 
next  stage,  of  positive  religious  feeling.  When  a  con- 
gregation are  set  free  from  the  entanglements  and  bur- 
dens of  the  world,  and  brought  into  the  higher  realms 
of  imagination,  fancy,  and  feeling,  they  are  ready  for 
the  plastic  touch,  they  are  ready  to  listen,  to  take  part 
indeed.  If  an  organ  be  well  played  in  the  beginning, 
as  soon  as  its  tones  cease,  the  congregation  is  reason- 
ably prepared  to  join  with  the  choir  in  the  singing  of 
the  opening  hymn  or  anthem. 

THE  HYMN  ACCOMPANIMENT. 

Next  to  this  is  its  accompanying  power.  I  am 
accustomed  to  think  of  a  congregation  with  an  organ 
as  of  a  fleet  of  boats  in  the  harbor,  or  on  the  waters. 

VOL.   II.  6 


122          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

The  organ  is  the  flood,  and  the  people  a.re  the  boats ; 
and  they  are  buoyed  up  and  carried  along  upon  its  cur- 
rent as  boats  are  borne  upon  the  depths  of  the  sea.  So, 
aside  from  mere  musical  reasons,  there  is  this  power 
that  comes  upon  people,  that  encircles  them,  that  fills 
them,  —  this  great,  mighty  ocean-tone ;  and  that  helps 
them  to  sing. 

Then,  besides,  comes  the  interlude.  Now,  the  inter- 
lude is  an  echo,  or  a  prophecy,  or  both.  If  it  be  an 
echo,  it  attempts  to  render  in  pure  musical  sound 
the  dominant  thought  of  the  stanza  that  went  before. 
If  it  be  a  prophecy,  it  sees  what  is  coming,  and  prepares 
the  way  for  it,  and  brings  the  devotional  congregation 
to  the  next  stanza.*  And  if  it  be  in  the  hands  of  a 
Christian  man,  and  a  man  of  musical  genius,  it  may 
help  much.  Otherwise,  it  is  a  mere  noisy  gap  between 
two  verses,  a  sprawl  sometimes,  an  awful  racket  of 
chords,  a  sort  of  running  up  stairs  and  tumbling  down 
again.  Not  one  organist  in  ten  seems  to  have  the 
slightest  idea  why  an  interlude  should  be  played. 
John  Zundel  f  knows.  I  wish  John  Zundel  had  a  hun- 
dred thousand  children,  and  every  one  was  another 
John  Zundel.  I  speak  thus,  not  to  have  his  name  go 

*  As  to  the  class  of  music  suitable  for  the  organ,  Mr.  Beecher  said 
that  there  was  an  ample  supply  of  ecclesiastical  music,  that  had  been 
accumulating  for  four  or  five  hundred  years,  and  was  sufficient  for  all 
church  requirements.  But  there  is  no  objection  to  what  is  called 
"secular"  music,  if  it  be  in  its  nature  devotion-breathing.  For  ex- 
ample, much  of  the  music  of  Mendelssohn  and  of  Mozart,  almost  all 
that  of  Von  Weber  and  of  Beethoven,  can  be  adapted  to  the  church. 
But  music  which  is  frivolous,  which  recalls  the  waltz  and  the  opera, 
vs  a  desecration. 

t  The  able,  and  now  venerable,  organist  of  Plymouth  Church. 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  123 

out ;  but  to  him  music  means  worship,  and  the  organ 
means  religion.  He  is  the  man  who  told  me,  when 
he  was  converted,  that  he  "  prayed  just  as  other  people 
did  now."  "  Why,"  said  I,  "  what  do  you  mean  ? "  Said 
he,  "I  speak  my  prayers  out  to  God."  ""Well,  how 
did  you  always  do  ? "  "I  always  played  them  on 
the  piano  before,"  said  he.  Such  was  his  habit.  So 
long  had  he  been  trained,  that  what  words  are  to  us 
notes  were  to  him ;  and  he  expressed  every  thought 
and  every  feeling  that  he  had  upon  the  instrument. 
And  you  would  think  he  did  it  yet,  if  you  heard  him 
in  his  inspired  moments  upon  the  organ.  It  has 
brought  tears  to  my  eyes  a  hundred  times  ;  I  have  gone 
in  jaded  and  unhearted,  and  have  been  caught  up  by 
him  and  lifted  so  that  I  saw  the  flash  of  the  gates  !  I 
have  been  comforted ;  I  have  been  helped.  And  if  I 
have  preached  to  him  and  helped  him,  —  and  I  know 
I  have,  —  he  has  preached  to  me  and  helped  me ;  and 
he  knows  not,  and  never  will  know,  how  much. 

THE   CLOSING  VOLUNTARY. 

If  a  person  has  been  listening  to  a  discourse  which 
has  stirred  up  the  conscience,  and  awakened  fear,  and 
left  the  soul  in  a  distressed  state,  there  is  a  way  of  giv- 
ing relief  without  discharging  the  feeling.  There  is  in 
music  a  power  of  lifting  the  soul  towards  the  great 
music-land.  If  persons  in  the  congregation  are  going 
out  in  a  state  of  stricture,  —  or  of  rapture  of  mind, 
even,  —  whichever  way,  the  organ,  by  sympathy  or  by 
contrast,  can  dismiss  them  into  the  world,  having,  as  it 
were,  liquified  the  sermon,  and  poured  it  out  into  the 
very  atmosphere. 


124  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 


ORGANISTS. 

Now,  the  pity  of  this  matter  is  that  ministers  care  so 
little  about  it,  and  persons  in  the  church  know  so  little 
about  it,  that  organists  do  pretty  much  as  they  have 
a  mind  to.  Nobody  criticises  them,  nobody  teaches 
them.  There  is  no  organ  school ;  there  are  no  masters 
who  are  held  in  such  respect  that  their  word  is  law. 
There  are  admirable  men  presiding  at  the  organ,  few 
and  far  between ;  but,  intermediately,  we  are  overrun 
with  a  vast  number  of  persons  who  play  without  reason, 
without  heart,  without  soul,  and  with  no  sort  of  relig- 
ious foundation.  The  only  thing  they  think  of  is  that 
they  have  to  play  so  many  pieces  and  at  such  points  in 
the  service,  for  that  is  the  way  the  thing  is  arranged. 
And  so  they  play;  and  this  magnificent  instrument, 
that  has  in  it  such  power,  such  impassioned  eloquence, 
such  soul-stirring  influences,  is  too  often  neglected  and 
abused  in  the  hands  of  miserable  musical  miscreants. 

First  come  mere  musicians.  They  play  for  science, 
for  reputation,  and  that  is  all.  They  think  no  more 
about  it.  That  would  be  as  if  the  minister  were  think- 
ing of  grammar  and  rhetoric  and  personal  popularity, 
and  nothing  else.  For  preaching  is  simply  a  means  to 
an  end,  and  the  sermon  is  a  mere  tool,  an  instrument, 
and  the  preacher  but  a  servant.  God's  work  is  the 
thing  to  be  done.  I  care  not  if  the  player  be  Beetho- 
ven and  the  organ  be  the  most  magnificent  that  ever 
was  constructed ;  they  are  both  servants,  and  their  glory 
is  subordination.  They  are  to  serve  God  in  the 
thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  fancies,  and  the  affections  of 
his  poor  little  children,  of  his  servants,  of  all  that  are 


RELATIONS  OF  MUSIC  TO   WORSHIP/  125 

in  the  congregation.  How  many  are  inspired  with, 
any  such  conception  as  this  ?  And  here  come  in  the 
musical  monkeys,  dancing  on  their  organ,  playing  up 
and  playing  down,  rattling  all  sorts  of  waltzes,  with  a 
long  leg  stretched  out  here  and  there  to  make  it  sound 
like  Sunday  music. 

TRUE  ORGAN  MUSIC. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  a  word  in  reference  to  the 
proper  music  for  the  organ.  There  need  be  no  recourse 
to  any  other  than  ecclesiastical  music,  because  the 
treasury  of  organ  music  is  very  rich.  There  has  been 
a  line  of  masters  for  four  or  five  hundred  years,  who 
have  been  contributing  to  the  riches  of  the  world 
in  the  music  adapted  to  this  noblest  of  all  instruments. 
There  are  yet  a  great  many  contributors  to  it.  No 
man  need  lack  preludes,  no  man  need  lack  afterpieces, 
or  even  interludes.  Not  only  themes,  but  methods  of 
treatment,  abound.  The  world  is  rich  in  them  for  every 
young  musician.  Still,  there  is  no  objection  to  the  in- 
troduction into  the  church  services  of  much  of  that 
which  is  called  secular  music,  provided  it  be,  in  its 
nature,  devotion-breathing.  There  is  very  little  that 
Von  Weber  ever  wrote  that  is  not  fit,  in  its  nature 
and  spirit,  for  the  church.  Much  of  Mendelssohn's 
music,  although  written  for  secular  occasions,  is  also 
spiritual.  And  I  think  you  could  find  nothing  in 
Beethoven,  from  beginning  to  end,  that  would  not  befit 
the  church,  if  it  were  re-adapted.  So  with  much  of 
Mozart's  music,  some  of  Rossini's,  and  many  others. 

But  there  is  a  great  deal  of  music  that  is  not  simply 
gay,  it  is  frisky.  It  is  even  frivolous.  The  introduc- 


126          LECTUKES  ON  PKEACHING. 

tion  of  such  music  into  church,  just  because  it  happens 
to  be  in  vogue ;  the  trick  of  beginning  with  a  broad 
musical  opening  and  then  letting  people  hear,  tinkling 
and  trickling  along  down,  some  air  from  an  opera,  — 
just  a  little  of  it,  to  tickle  the  fancy,  —  all  covered 
up,  as  they  imagine,  by  the  bass  or  by  the  other  parts ; 
the  foolery  of  playing  in  the  house  of  God  the  waltzes 
that  the  young  folks  danced  to,  perhaps,  but  a  night  or 
two  ago,  or  the  things  which  they  have  heard  in  opera 
during  the  week,  or  any  other  fashionable  music  of 
the  day,  —  this  is  a  desecration;  it  is  dishonoring  a 
man's  own  profession ;  it  is  dishonoring  the  house  of 
God,  and  a  minister  ought  to  be  able  to  know  it  and 
to  stop  it.  One  of  the  miseries  of  a  ministry  un- 
educated in  music  is,  that  ministers  frequently  do 
not  know  enough  to  discern  when  the  music  is  good 
and  when  it  is  bad.  They  do  not  know  enough  to  be 
the  bishop  of  the  organ  and  the  organist,  as  well  as  of 
the  congregation. 

When,  in  addition  to  that  library  of  Lowell  Mason's, 
which  I  understand  has  been  presented  to  your  library, 

—  and  a  very  noble  musical  library  it  is  for  America, 

—  when  you  shall  have  a  lectureship   founded  upon 
it,  so  that  you  shall  annually  hear  lectures  upon  music, 
and  be  properly  drilled  in  it,  then,  I  believe,  there  will 
come  out  from  this  a  generation  of  men  who  will  un- 
derstand what  music  was  meant  for,  whether  in  the 
choir,  in  the  organ,  in  the  family,  or  in  the  lecture-room. 

THE  CHOIR. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  of  the  choir  as  an  assistant 
in  music.     The  first  question  that  naturally  comes  up 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  127 

is,  "Is  it  best  to  have  a  choir,  or  congregational 
singing?"  My  reply  is,  It  is  best  to  have  a  choir 
and  congregational  singing,  —  both  !  When  Mr.  Zundel 
once  went  to  play  at  a  little  church,  he  had  the  whole 
matter  put  into  his  hands,  and  was  requested  to  de- 
velop congregational  singing.  After  a  few  months,  I 
asked  him  how  he  was  getting  along.  "  Oh,"  said  he, 
"  there  is  one  element  necessary  to  congregational  sing- 
ing, and  that  is  that  you  should  have  a  congregation. 
There  are  not  so  many  persons  in  the  pews  as  I 
have  up  in  my  choir,  and  so  you  cannot  have  con- 
gregational singing."  Now,  where  that  is  the  case,  if 
you  are  to  have  any  singing  at  all,  you  must  have  it  in 
the  choir. 

Then,  there  is  a  class  of  music  that  may  be  very 
edifying,  and  yet  beyond  the  reach  of  the  congrega- 
tion ;  though  I  have  great  faith  in  the  capacity  of  a 
congregation  to  learn  singing.  The  choir  may  edify  the 
congregation  with  music,  certainly  on  special  occasions. 
Then,  in  the  next  place,  a  choir  becomes  a  kind  of  mul- 
tiplex leader.  It  takes  its  time  and  movement  from 
the  director  or  the  organist,  and  gives  them  out  vocally, 
and  the  whole  congregation  tend  to  follow  it.  So  the 
choir  acts  as  a  leader. 

I  know  it  is  often  said  that  there  is  always  a  quarrel 
in  the  choir,  and  always  trouble.  "Well,  there  is  always 
a  quarrel  somewhere  in  the  world.  Sometimes  it  is  be- 
tween the  pulpit  and  the  pews,  sometimes  it  is  in  the 
pews,  or  between  them,  sometimes  it  is  in  the  choir. 
It  flies  about  from  one  place  to  another.  There  is  al- 
ways more  or  less  of  a  disturbance  going  on,  but  there 
does  not  need  to  be  any  quarrel  in  the  choir,  if  you 


128          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

will  only  do  one  thing,  —  infuse  into  the  heart  of  the 
minister,  and  get  him  to  infuse  into  the  heart  of  the 
congregation,  and  get  the  choir  itself  to  understand, 
that  musical  service  is  religious  service. 

Lowell  Mason  used  always  to  open  his  choir-meet- 
ings with  prayer,  and  to  talk  to  the  young  men  and 
the  young  women  who  were  with  him,  as  though  they 
had  come  to  prepare  themselves  to  take  part  in  render- 
ing the  service  of  God  in  the  sanctuary.  And  he  so 
impressed  them  with  this  thought,  he  made  them  so 
feel  it,  that  there  was  never  any  trouble  in  his  choir; 
religion  crowded  it  out.  There  have  been  in  my  own 
choir  little  "  tiffs,"  occasionally,  such  as  all  of  you  have 
in  your  families,  but  there  never  has  been  a  quarrel  or 
a  serious  difficulty.  So  far  from  that,  I  always  expect 
that  the  persons  who  come  into  my  choir  will,  in  the 
course  of  a  year,  come  also  into  the  church.  The  feel- 
ing of  the  choir  is  a  ripening  feeling,  a  religious  feeling, 
and  almost  every  member,  if  not  so  in  the  beginning, 
eventually  becomes  a  communicant  at  the  table  of  the 
Lord.  Where  this  is  the  case,  when  choirs  are  leavened 
with  religion  and  made  to  feel  that  their  work  is  relig- 
ious work,  there  is  no  more  danger  of  their  quarreling, 
while  thus  consciously  serving  God,  than  there  is  of 
deacons  and  elders  quarreling  while  performing  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Lord  in  his  house. 

CONGREGATIONAL  SINGING. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  a  fanatic  about  congregational 
singing,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  make  you  enthusiasts,  — 
as  near  as  that  to  fanaticism.  I  hold  that  a  man  ought 
always  to  be  an  enthusiast,  and  that  no  man  is  a  good 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  129 

one  who  has  not  the  capacity  of  being  fanatical  in 
places  and  on  occasions.  Tlie  whole  church  ought  to 
sing,  because  the  whole  church  ought  to  worship,  and 
there  is  no  other  worship  provided  in  our  churches  but 
this.  To  listen  to  the  prayer  of  him  that  is  most  gifted 
is  certainly  a  help,  and  a  long  way  toward  worshiping ; 
but,  after  all,  no  man  worships  in  spirit  and  in  truth 
who  does  not  take  a  voluntary  and  personal  part,  such 
as  is  necessary  in  singing.  I  do  not  believe  it  is  possi- 
ble for  a  person  to  sing  our  hymns  and  not  worship. 
I  will  read  you  a  single  hymn.  I  would  like  to  see 
the  man  that  could  sing  this  hymn  and  not  feel  that 
he  had  worshiped.  I  will  call  your  attention  to 
another  thing.  A  want  of  proper  culture  has  permitted 
such  irreverence  to  grow  up,  that,  in  the  singing  or  the 
reading  of  such  a  hymn  as  this,  one  will  be  tucking 
his  hat  under  the  seat,  or  fixing  his  cane,  or  placing 
his  umbrella  in  the  corner ;  or  the  mother  will  be  ar- 
ranging the  neglected  curls  or  pulling  at  the  collar  of 
her  little  one  ;  or  the  sexton  will  be  running  around  and 
whispering  to  this  or  that  deacon  to  know  whether  he 
had  better  open  this  window  a  little  more  or  shut  that 
one  a  little  more.  This  is  all  wrong.  Hymns  are  wor- 
ship, and  should  be  respected  as  such. 

This  hymn  is  one  of  the  closest,  most  endearing, 
clinging,  yearning  prayers  to  Christ :  — 

"  Thou,  0  my  Jesus,  thou  didst  me 

Upon  the  cross  embrace  ; 
For  me  didst  bear  the  nails  and  spear, 
And  manifold  disgrace, 

"  And  griefs  and  torments  numberless, 
And  sweats  of  agony,  — 
6*  ! 


130          LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

Yea,  death  itself,  and  all  for  one 
Who  was  thine  enemy. 

"  Then  why,  0  blessed  Jesus  Christ, 

Should  I  not  love  thee  well  ? 
Not  for  the  hope  of  winning  heaven, 
Nor  of  escaping  hell ; 

*'  Not  with  the  hope  of  gaining  aught, 

Nor  seeking  a  reward  ; 
But  as  thyself  hast  loved  me, 
0  ever-loving  Lord  ! 

"  E'en  so  I  love  thee,  and  will  love, 
And  in  thy  praise  will  sing  ;   x 
Solely  because  thou  art  my  God, 
And  my  eternal  King." 

Now,  if  you  can  sing  that,  and  not  cry,  —  I  am  sorry 
for  your  eyes. 

PLYMOUTH  CHURCH. 

People  often  wonder  why  folks  come  to  Plymouth 
Church  so  much.  I  will  tell  you;  it  is  the  singing 
that  brings  them  there.  It  is  the  atmosphere  there 
is  in  the  loving,  cheerful,  hopeful  courage  of  that 
congregation  in  the  singing.  They  get  a  sermon  too, 
but  then  it  is  more  the  singing,  I  think,  that  accounts 
for  the  throng.  It  comforts  their  souls.  I  have  seen 
men  come  into  that  congregation,  —  and  there  are 
at  least  twenty-five  hundred  out  of  the  twenty- 
seven  hundred  there  that  sing, —  I  have  seen  them 
come  into  that  congregation  exactly  as  they  would 
go  to  Barnum's ;  because,  you  know,  it  is  the  trick  of 
the  papers  to  represent  it  as  a  kind  of  theatre,  or 
what-not.  They  would  sit  down  and  look  all  around, 
watching  to  see  what  was  going  to  be  done  next. 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO   WORSHIP.  131 

When  I  arose,  they  would  stare  as  though  they  really 
thought  I  was  going  to  throw  a  somersault.  I  would 
give  out  a  hymn,  and  they  would  still  be  watching  for 
something  that  had  not  come  yet,  but  was  coming. 
The  organ  would  give  out  the  tune,  and  the  congregation 
begin  to  sing.  These  men  would  rise,  and  stand  in  their 
places,  and  when  the  great  volume  of  sound,  like  the 
voice  of  many  waters,  would  break  on  them,  I  have 
seen  them  first,  in  a  kind  of  bewilderment,  looking  all 
around,  up  in  the  galleries,  on  a  sea  of  books  opened, 
and  everybody  busy  singing.  And  when  they  heard  such 
a  sound  as  there  was  rolling  down  upon  them,  or  roll- 
ing up  towards  God,  I  have  seen  them  stand,  and,  by 
the  second  verse,  away  would  go  the  tears  down  their 
cheeks.  The  hymn  fairly  overcame  them.  Better  than 
a  sermon,  better  than  any  exhortation,  —  why  should  it 
not  affect  them  thus  ? 

HOW  TO  PROMOTE   GENERAL  SINGING. 

Now,  in  order  to  promote  congregational  singing,  you 
must  be  in  earnest  about  it.  Among  the  things  that 
you  say  to  yourself  must  be  this :  "  I  will  give  my 
whole  strength,  first  to  preaching  to  these  people ;  next, 
to  their  social  development,  by  visiting  them  man  by 
man ;  and  always  to  the  cultivation  of  devotion  and  wor- 
ship among  them  by  sacred  song."  How  shall  it  be 
done  ?  Well,  preach  about  it  often.  Secure  the  best 
leadership  you  can ;  encourage  your  people  to  sing  in 
the  family,  to  sing  in  all  social  meetings  ;  let  them  sing 
the  same  hymns  often  and  everywhere.  That  is  to  say, 
when  men  come  into  church  to  sing  hymns,  they  do 
not  want  to  sing  many  of  the  church  hymns  now  used, 


132          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

—  there  is  very  little  perfume  in  them.  They  may  be 
very  beautiful,  but  they  are  like  the  japonica,  which  is 
exquisite  in  form  and  color,  but  has  no  fragrance. 
Now,  hymns  that  do  people  good  may  not  be  beautiful 
in  construction,  and  yet  they  may  be  full  of  the  asso- 
ciations and  experiences  of  the  heart.  The  tunes  that 
the  man  heard  as  a  child,  around  the  family  altar,  the 
hymns  that  were  sung  on  Sabbath  evenings  at  home, 
and  that  carry  with  them  a  part  of  his  own  past  his- 
tory, that  have  treasured  up  in  them  sacred  memorials 
of  the  best  part  of  his  life,  —  those  hymns,  and  the 
hymns  that  are  sung  in  the  Sunday-schools,  should  be 
sung  in  church.  There  ought  to  be  but  one  book  in 
every  congregation.  Or,  if  there  be  two,  the  second 
should  be  but  a  part  of  the  loaf  of  the  first  one  broken 
off,  so  that  the  same  thing  should  be  sung  at  home,  in 
the  lecture-room,  in  the  Sunday-school,  and  in  the 
great  congregation.  Then  you  will  have  hymns  that 
come  to  people,  touching  them  all  around ;  living  hymns, 
filled  with  their  own  life.'  Sing  much  at  home,  en- 
courage singing  in  the  day  schools,  in  the  household, 
in  the  Sunday-school,  in  the  lecture-room.  Sing  on 
your  way  rejoicing ;  make  everybody  sing  that  you  can, 
and  keep  them  singing. 

Then,  there  will  be  many  hesitations  and  many  re- 
trocessions. That  is  the  place  for  your  efforts.  When- 
ever things  do  not  go  right,  draw  up  the  buckle  one 
hole  more  and  go  at  them  again,  and  that  not  only  in 
music,  but  in  everything  else.  You  were  put  into  a 
church,  not  to  be  overcome,  but  to  conquer,  to  carry 
your  own  way,  —  that  is,  when  your  way  and  God's 
ways  are  consentaneous.  The  difficulties  ought  to  be 


DELATIONS   OF  MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  133 

nothing  but  whetstones  to  a  man,  making  him  sharper 
and  sharper. 

FELLOWSHIP  AND   SONG  HELP  EACH  OTHER. 

Let  me  say  one  thing  more :  You  never  will  have 
congregational  singing  as  long  as  you  have  no  con- 
gregational feeling.  Congregational  singing  will  cer- 
tainly break  down  the  stiffness,  the  formality,  and  the 
exclusive  habits  of  your  people,  or  else  the  stiffness, 
and  the  coldness,  and  the  exclusive  habits  of  your  peo- 
ple will  prevent  or  destroy  congregational  singing. 
You  cannot  sing  throughout'  the  church,  and  not  de- 
velop, subtly,  that  element  of  fellowship  that  gives 
elasticity  and  freedom  in  social  intercourse.  Now, 
a  congregation  that  have  been  trained  to  go  into 
church  and  sit  down  and  not  look  at  one  another, 
to  go  home  and  not  speak  to  one  another,  I  don't 
believe  can  be  trained  to  congregational  singing,  un- 
less by  an  extraordinary  pressure  and  process.  Fel- 
lowship and  song  are  but  different  developments  of  the 
same  spirit ;  and  therefore,  where  you  have  quarrels 
unreconciled  and  persons  who  do  not  care  for  each 
other,  people  sitting  apart  separately,  you  never  will 
make  them  sing  together,  they  never  will  pray  together, 
they  never  will  mingle  in  any  way.  And,  mark  my 
word,  if  you  wish  to  make  congregational  singing  easy, 
everything  that  you  do  to  bring  people  together  socially, 
genially,  in  Christian  sympathy,  will  facilitate  it.  And 
if  you  wish  to  bring  people  together  genially  and 
socially,  teach  them  to  sing,  and  that  will  facilitate 
your  purpose.  Thus  singing  and  sociality  act  and  re- 
act upon  each  other,  in  a  mutual  relation  of  cause  and 
effect. 


134  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


THE  CHOICE   OF  HYMNS. 

I  may  speak  a  word  on  the  subject  of  the  selection 
of  hymns  for  use  in  church  and  in  the  lecture-room. 
On  what  principle  should  we  choose  ?  or  is  there  any 
principle  which  should  dictate  the  selection  of  hymns  ? 
None  that  does  not  admit  of  infinite  variations.  But 
there  are  certain  general  principles.  For  example,  I  have 
always  pursued  what  may  be  called  a  psychological 
plan,  and  have  selected  hymns  sometimes  because  they 
were  automatic ;  they  volunteered  themselves,  and  I 
knew  that  under  such  circumstances  there  was  a  reason 
for  such  hymns,  there  was  something  in  the  air  that 
would  make  them  acceptable,  even  though  I  did  not 
know  why.  I  take  all  such  intimations  as  that ;  but 
still  there  is  a  general  plan,  and  it  is  this :  If  I  can 
bring  the  congregation,  before  I  come  personally  to 
handle  them,  into  a  triumphant,  jubilant  state,  a  cheer- 
ful, hopeful,  genial  state,  my  work  among  them  will  be 
made  easier  by  one  half  than  if  they  were  in  a  very 
depressed,  sad  state. 

I  believe  that  confession,  and  self-condemnation,  and 
all  that,  should  be  like  the  whippings  we  give  to 
our  children,  —  sharp  and  quick,  and  soon  over.  I  do 
not  believe  in  yokes  and  cloaks  and  long-continued 
burdens  of  depression.  I  believe  that  it  is  a  malarial 
poison  to  the  soul  for  a  man  to  go  long  bowed  down  with 
a  sense  of  sinfulness,  and  that  it  is  a  vicious  method  of 
teaching  that  brings  people  into  such  a  state  of  mind. 
It  is  remedial,  and  therefore  medicinal ;  and  to  give  a 
man  medicine  all  the  time  is  bad  for  him.  The  mind 
in  the  natural  condition  is  hopeful,  cheerful,  trusting, 


KELATIOXS   OF  MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  135 

loving.  That  is  the  relation  which  we  sustain  to  God. 
"We  are  sons.  "Henceforth  I  call  you  not  servants, 
but  friends.  The  servant  knoweth  not  what  his  Lord 
doeth.  I  admit  you  to  that  intimate  relation  by  which 
I  counsel  with  you  and  you  with  me.  You  know  all 
the  secrets  of  the  household;  you  are  my  children." 
And  it  is  a  shame  for  the  children  of  God  to  go  always 
with  downcast  heads.  When  the  storm  comes,  then 
the  grass  and  the  flowers  and  everything  bow  down 
with  the  weight ;  but  when  the  sun  comes  out  again, 
they  shake  off  the  raindrops  and  lift  themselves  up, 
and  are  stronger  by  reason  of  the  storm.  And  so  it 
should  be  with  Christian  men. 

I  think,  therefore,  if  you  begin  with  a  doleful  hymn, 
supposing  that  you  are  going  to  get  your  people  down, 
you  will  get  them  down  so  low  that  you  won't  get  them 
up  again.  You  will  mire  them.  Therefore  all  those 
hymns  of  depression  and  of  sadness  are  to  be  prescribed 
as  a  physician  prescribes  medicine,  —  in  broken  doses, 
and,  I  think,  mostly  homoeopathic  at  that.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  true  Christian  state  is  one  of  a  holy 
hilarity,  a  holy  courage,  a  holy  familiarity  with  God.  It 
is  the  soul  lifting  itself  into  its  natural,  native  air,  not 
afraid  to  look  at  God  with  the  veil,  Christ,  between ;  able 
now  to  see  him  face  to  face,  and  yet  live.  Therefore  I 
strike  for  that  feeling.  I  give  out  hymns  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  producing  a  certain  feeling  that  I  want  to  use. 

When,  therefore,  I  open  Sunday  service,  it  is  almost 
always  with  something  cheerful,  something  hopeful; 
something  that  celebrates  the  Sabbath  morning  and  its 
blessed  associations  ;  the  triumph  of  God  ;  the  triumph 
of  the  church ;  exultant  praise.  These  are  very  whole- 


136  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

some  elements  to  begin  with.  Then,  as  to  the  other 
hymns.  It  is  a  great  deal  better  for  you  not  to  give 
out  your  sermon  in  your  hymn,  or  to  follow  your  ser- 
mon in  your  hymn,  unless  it  be  one  of  those  rare 
hymns  which  will  distill  your  sermon,  and  give  it 
to  them  in  another  form.  If,  for  instance,  I  wish  to 
rebuke  my  congregation  in  the  sermon  for  anything,  I 
say  to  myself,  "  Now,  if  I  give  them  a  monitory  hymn, 
and  a  monitory  chapter,  and  then  a  scourging  sermon, 
I  shall  overdo  the  whole  thing.  It  will  be  without 
lights  and  shadows,  and  it  will  therefore  be  without 
elasticity,  without  rebound  ;  it  is  not  wise.  I  will  do 
this  rather.  The  state  of  mind  in  which  a  person  takes 
rebuke  and  profits  by  it,  is  a  state  of  comfort  and  of 
upliftedness,  and  I  will  raise  them  to  that  if  I  can. 
I  will  bring  them  up  into  true  Christian  states  of  mind 
by  my  hymns  and  my  prayer ;  and  when  I  get  them 
into  that  state,  I  can  say  anything  to  them  that  ought 
to  be  said  to  anybody."  So  I  will  sing  them  up  and 
pray  them  up,  and  then  I  will  take  them  down  a  little. 
And  not  only  will  they  bear  it,  but  they  will  digest  it. 
The  rebuke  will  not  be  powerless  ;  it  will  work  out  in 
their  after  lives. 

The  idea,  therefore,  that  I  wish  to  leave  in  your  minds, 
is  simply  this,  —  that  a  man  may  be  apparently  work- 
ing with  his  hymns  in  a  different  direction  from  his 
sermon,  and  yet  really  co-operating  with  it.  If  you 
want  to  bring  any  subject  before  the  congregation,  it 
is  sometimes  well  to  introduce  it  by  some  statement 
which,  while  very  different  from  the  subject  itself,  yet 
will  be  very  fit  for  them  to  hear,  and  to  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  ;  and  hymns  are  the  instruments  by  which 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  137 

you  may  best  do  this.  This  will  require  practice  ;  and 
it  will  come  to  every  man  that  gets  the  idea  and  at- 
tempts to  put  it  in  practice.  He  will  at  first,  perhaps, 
not  succeed  well ;  but  in  time  he  will  grow  skillful  in 
such  administration  of  hymns. 

PRAYER-MEETING  MUSIC. 

It  only  remains  that  I  should  say  a  word  as  to  sing- 
ing in  prayer-meeting.  I  meant  to  have  had  some  one 
present,  who,  with  facile  touch  and  in  sympathy  with 
me,  should  give  out  some  hymns  and  give  specimens 
of  dealing  with  an  audience,  to  show  how  much  can 
be  actually  done  with  the  hymn-book.  For  I  feel  that 
with  a  Bible  and  a  hymn-book  a  man  has  a  whole 
library  ;  and  if  lie  knows  how  to  use  those  two  things, 
he  knows  enough  to  be  a  missionary,  or  to  be  a  min- 
ister anywhere,  so  far  as  mere  dealing  with  people  is 
concerned.  But  that  I  cannot  do  to-day.  Therefore  I 
have  only  to  say  in  a  few  cold  and  formal  words  what 
otherwise  I  could  have  rendered  in  a  more  lifelike 
form. 

In  speaking  of  the  prayer-meeting,  I  omitted  very- 
much  that  I  should  have  said  on  the  subject  of  music. 
In  the  prayer-meeting,  music  ought  to  be  a  grand  sub- 
stratum. They  are  called  prayer-meetings,  but  two 
prayers  are  often  enough  for  a  meeting, — about  two 
prayers  to  six  hymns.  "  Why  ? "  Because  out  of  every 
six  people  that  pray,  there  are  not  two  that  can  pray  as 
a  hymn  can.  It  is  not  probable  that  you  will  find  one 
person  in  an  average  congregation  of  two  hundred  that 
can  express  so  admirably,  with  such  subtle  lines,  the 
dealing  of  God  with  men,  as  Cowper  did.  It  is  not 


138  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

once  in  a  hundred  times  that  a  man  can  preach  so 
much  sound  gospel  in  verse  as  old  John  Newton  did. 
You  have  very  few  men  like  Wesley  and  Watts,  who 
are  the  two  wings  of  hymnody.  Those  two  men  soar 
as  few  can  soar.  We  might  say, 

"  Descend,  immortal  dove  ! 
Take  us  upon  thy  wings." 

When  these  men  are  invoked,  they  take  the  whole  con- 
gregation on  their  wings,  and  lift  them  up. 

Now,  in  singing,  be  familiar.  For  instance,  if  a 
prayer-meeting  is  opened  with  a  hymn,  that  clears 
away  the  cobwebs.  But  suppose  the  people  drawl 
it.  As  soon  as  they  get  through,  you  say,  "  Brethren, 
that  won't  do ;  we  can't  get  along  with  that ;  let  us 
take  another  hymn,  and  see  what  we  can  make  of 
it.  Take  this  next  hymn,  so  and  so."  It  wakes  them 
all  up,  and  every  man  smiles,  and  they  go  at  the  next 
with  a  good  will.  By  that  time,  they  begin  to  know 
what  they  are  about.  Take  a  little  of  this  hymn,  or 
the  whole  of  that  hymn ;  but  for  heaven's  sake,  gen- 
tlemen, don't  emasculate  hymns  in  order  to  meet  the 
wants  of  those  persons  in  the  congregation  who  think 
they  have  served  God  enough  when  they  come  once  a 
day  and  stay  half  an  hour  in  the  church,  and  then 
are  impatient  to  get  home  !  Of  those  who  want  short 
hymns  and  short  prayers,  you  will  never  make  a 
man  out  of  ten  thousand  fit  for  the  kingdom  of 
God.  We  want  religion  to  be  so  important,  so  earnest, 
that  men  shall  demand  broad,  deep  sermons,  and,  in 
order  to  have  them,  will  give  the  workmen  time. 
We  want  men  that  shall  drink  so  deep  of  devotion 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  139 

that  they  will  need  a  deep  well.  Seven  or  eight  verses 
are  not  too  much,  if  they  are  the  right  kind  of  verses  ; 
and,  in  good  hymns,  two  verses  are  often  enough  when 
you  want  to  make  a  glancing  shot.  Or,  if  you  will,  take 
four  or  six.  Do  not  count.  Never  sing  by  arithmetic, 
but  make  a  business  of  it.  Sing  for  the  love  of  it. 
Your  prayer-meetings  are  real  work ;  and  the  man  that 
is  with  his  little  congregation,  molding  them,  inspiring 
them  with  a  common  feeling,  carrying  them  off  from 
the  shoals  where  he  knows  they  have  run  aground, 
with  the  instrument  of  prayer,  with  the  instrument  of 
singing  (which  is  but  another  form  of  vocal  prayer), 
his  own  soul  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  "full 
fellowship  and  love  of  men,  —  what  can  he  not  ac- 
complish under  such  circumstances  ? 

To  bring  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  living 
men,  from  the  days  of  Pentecost  down  to  this  hour,  is  a 
grand  and  noble  way  to  deal  with  them;  and  ministers 
that  understand  their  function,  and  know  what  their 
powers  and  instruments  are,  ought  to  be  able  to  de- 
velop out  of  the  prayer-meeting  and  out  of  the  church 
an  influence  of  Divine  truth,  and  a  feeling  divinely 
inspired  in  the  human  soul,  that  shall  carry  men  far 
along  on  their  journey  god  ward.  And  among  the 
most  active,  subtle,  effective  instruments  which  the 
minister  has  to  work  with,  music,  studiously  and  skill- 
fully used,  in  the  household,  the  social  meeting,  the 
prayer-meeting,  and  the  church  service,  stands  eminent 
and  highly  blessed  of  God. 

QUESTIONS    AND    ANSWERS. 

Q.  What  do  you  think  of  the  Fulton  Street  prayer-meeting, 
—  of  its  receiving  requests  for  prayers  from  all  paits  of  the 
world  '( 


140          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  tliink  very  well  of  the  Fulton 
Street  prayer-meeting ;  and  I  have  no  objection  to 
their  receiving  requests  for  prayer  from  all  parts  of  the 

world. 

t 

Q.  What  about  interludes,  as  they  are  commonly  employed 
now? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  think  the  music  would  be  better 
without  them  than  with  them.  If  you  consider  an 
interlude  merely  as  a  pause  for  taking  breath,  I  think 
that  is  an  unworthy  use  for  the  organ ;  and,  if  it  has 
any  justification  whatever,  it  is  in  this,  that  it  extends 
one  thought,  or  anticipates  another,  or  connects  the  two, 
between  two  stanzas.  There  have  been  books  of  in- 
terludes written,  which,  like  all  things  of  that  kind, 
are  helps,  and  not  substitutes. 

Q.  In  what  end  of  the  church  •would  you  have  the  organ  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Either  end.  It  makes  very  little 
difference  where  you  put  the  instrument.  It  is  a  very- 
great  help,  in  speaking  anywhere,  to  stand  encompassed 
by  the  people  ;  and  if  you  wish  to  throw  the  minister 
forward  from  the  rear  wall,  you  must  economize  the  room 
behind  him  by  placing  the  organ  and  choir  there. 
Then  the  minister  will  be  the  only  one  who  will  not 
see  them  ;  and  the  whole  congregation,  when  they  rise 
in  their  pews,  will  see  the  organ  and  the  choir,  and  go. 
naturally  with  them.  If  the  leader  marks  time,  the 
whole  congregation,  without  any  disturbance,  can  easily 
follow  his  hand.  On  the  other  hand,  there  may  be 
occasions  in  which  you  are  required  to  put  the  organ 
at  the  other  end  of  the  church.  I  should  say,  place  it 
behind  the  minister,  if  I  were  to  choose.  But  some- 


RELATIONS   OF  MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  141 

times  it  is  put  off  on  one  side,  and  I  know  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  be.  Generally  the  organ  fills  the 
whole  church,  from  whatever  point  it  sounds. 

Q.  What  do  you  think  of  such  playing  of  organists  as  we 
sometimes  hear  when  the  congregation  is  going  out  after  a  solemn 
sermon  and  worship  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Such  playing  as  we  sometimes  hear 
in  our  churches  is,  I  think,  detestable.  To  use  the  organ 
as  a  mere  cover  of  noise,  under  any  circumstances  what- 
ever, is  a  defilement  and  an  abomination.  As  an  opposite 
instance,  —  at  the  close  of  the  sermon  on  a  communion 
Sabbath  morning,  I  invite  all  that  wish  to  commune  to 
remain.  A  great  many  go  out.  At  once  Mr.  Zundel 
takes  some  very  tender  and  loving  theme,  and  with  a 
sweet  combination  of  stops  it  fills  the  air.  Now,  those 
who  are  going  out  may  not  profit ;  but,  as  I  sit  in  my 
chair  and  shut  my  eyes,  it  comforts  me.  It  is  so  with 
others  all  through  the  congregation.  I  often  wonder 
that  people  go  out  so  long  as  the  organ  is  playing,  — 
and  yet  sometimes  I  have  wondered  that  they  stay  in 
when  they  hear  it. 

Q.  Would  you  make  use  of  an  instrument  at  a  social  prayer- 
meeting  ] 

MR.  t  BEECHER.  —  Yes ;  I  would  have  a  piano  in  a  lec- 
ture-room, because  it  better  marks  the  time,  and  there 
the  time  needs  to  be  brought  up.  In  many  of  our 
Sunday-schools  we  have  organs,  but  the  children  are 
brought  up  to  time  by  the  staccato  voice  and  manner 
of  imperative  teachers. 

Q.  In  some  churches  we  find  many  hymns  sung  to  a  great 
variety  of  tunes.  What  do  you  think  of  that  ? 

MR,  BEECHER.  —  I  would  not  be  in  bondage  to  any 


142          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

practice.  There  are  some  hymns  that  I  should  always 
want  sung  to  a  particular  tune,  — •  "  Jesus,  lover  of  my 
soul,"  for  instance.  That  is  a  very  marked  hymn.  It 
is  one  of  the  praying  hymns.  There  are  a  thousand  of 
them,  but  this  is  one  of  the  exquisite  ones ;  a  hymn 
that  I  should  love  to  hear  sung  if  I  were  dying.  And 
I  should  like  to  have  it  to  a  tune  that  was  married  to 
it,  and  sung  to  that  only.  But  then,  ill  the  majority  of 
cases,  I  do  not  feel  the  least  objection  to  singing  a  hymn 
to  a  dozen  different  tunes.  That  is  to  say,  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  German  method.  I  think  that  originated 
in  the  feeling  that  the  common  people  were  so  uncul- 
tured that  they  could  not  carry  more  than  one  hymn  to 
one  tune,  which  should  be  as  simple  as  possible.  From 
that  source,  I  think,  comes  the  idea  that  in  congrega- 
tional singing  all  ought  to  sing  the  air  and  let  the  organ 
carry  the  harmony.  I  say  a  congregation  can  carry  all 
the  four  parts  just  as  well  as  the  choir  can. 

Q.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  do  not  people  that  cannot  read  learn  a 
hymn  more  easily  if  it  is  always  associated  with  the  same  time,  — 
children,  for  instance  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Very  likely  they  do.  That  may 
be  a  reason  why,  in  certain  congregations  and  in  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  country,  for  a  time  at  least,  the  wed- 
ding of  a  hymn  and  tune  should  be  without  divorce. 
But,  as  a  general  system,  applying  to  all  congregations, 
I  should  not  advise  it ;  I  would  only  apply  it  in  special 
cases. 

Q.  "Would  you  employ  chanting  in  the  services  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  would,  and  I  would  employ  re- 
sponsive reading.  I  am  going  to,  —  and  have  been 


RELATIONS    OF   MUSIC   TO   WORSHIP.  143 

going  to  for  ten  years  in  my  church,  —  but  I  have  n't 
got  to  it  yet. 

Q.  Would  you  have  the  ordinary  Sabbath-school  music  dis- 
carded from  church  music  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  would  make  no  distinction.  I 
would  discard  a  good  deal  of  church  music.  Some 
hymn-tunes  have  crept  into  our  books  lately,  which  a 
man  might  sing  to  all  eternity,  and  then,  if  he  waited 
one  minute,  he  would  forget  what  they  were,  so  thin 
and  so  miserable  are  they !  A  great  many  Sunday- 
school  tunes  are  like  the  Sunday-school  hymns,  —  they 
are  sentimentalism  gone  drunk.  I  feel  a  righteous  in- 
dignation when  I  think  of  the  stalwart  stanzas  of  old 
Watts,  and  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  and  of  Dod- 
dridge,  of  Montgomery's  hymns,  of  Barton's  hymns,  and 
of  many  others  of  modern  date,  —  noble  recitations  of 
the  history  of  Christ  and  of  the  gospel,  most  magnifi- 
cent delineations  of  the  other  life  and  of  all  the  experi- 
ences of  a  Christian,  —  and  see  our  children  brought  up 
on  such  miserable  trash  and  garbage  as  they  too  often 
are  in  our  Sunday-schools  !  It  is  a  sin  and  a  shame  to 
bring  them  up  in  that  way.  I  know  that  children  are 
old  enough  at  the  age  of  five  years  to  feel  the  grandeur 
of  some  of  those  old  hymns.  And  they  are  being 
cheated  out  of  them. 

Now,  I  do  not  say  that  all  the  Sunday-school  hymns 
are  to  be  rejected ;  but  we  are  overrun  with  them,  and 
there  ought  to  be  a  winnowing  that  should  separate  the 
vast  amount  of  chaff  from  the  handful  of  wheat.  A 
good  deal  of  other  music  is  subject,  I  think,  to  the  same 
criticism.  There  is  much  that  it  will  be  well  to  pre- 
serve, but  much  more  that  ought  to  be  burned. 


144          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

Q.   What  is  your  idea  of  a  praise-meeting  ? 

MR.  BEECHER. —  A  praise-meeting  I  understand  to 
be  one  in  which  the  whole  congregation  so  associate  to- 
gether, that  whatever  they  say  is  an  argument  of  praise 
and  thanksgiving.  The  chord  is,  Give  thanks  !  "  With 
all  prayer,  with  thanksgiving,"  says  the  Apostle.  You 
will  be  struck,  if  you  look  through  your  concordance  of 
the  New  Testament,  to  see  how  much  thanksgiving  is 
insisted  upon.  Now,  by  thanksgiving  I  do  not  under- 
stand a  cold  "  thank  you."  I  understand  by  it  an  exult- 
ant state  of  mind,  —  cheerful,  hopeful,  loving,  yearning, 
upspringing,  all  running  in  the  direction  of  joy  and 
gratitude  and  praise.  A  praise-meeting  is  one  that  con- 
fines itself  to  that,  and  gives  utterance  to  it,  in  prayer, 
in  conversation,  and  in  hymns.  You  might  also  have 
confessional  meetings ;  though  these,  I  think,  should  be 
short  and  very  rare.  It  is  better  to  have  mixed  meet- 
ings for  such  purposes,  that  one  thing  may  supplement 
another.  But  praise  is  always  wholesome. 

Q.   Would  you  always  read  the  hymn  before  singing  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  No,  I  would  not,  —  I  do  not  always, 
I  mean.  I  would  ;  but  I  never  do  read  a  hymn,  first, 
when  I  do  not  feel  like  it,  and,  secondly,  when  I  am 
pressed  for  time  and  must  abbreviate  the  services.  I 
often  omit  the  reading  of  hymns,  —  and  am  very  much 
blamed  for  it. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  that  the  sermon  is  a  part  of  worship  as 
much  as  singing  1 

MR,  BEECHER.  —  Well,  if  you  extend  the  term  "  wor- 
ship "  so  as  to  mean  by  it  anything  that  lias  relation  to 
the  divine  life,  —  yes.  But  we  discriminate  between 


EELATIONS   OF  MUSIC  TO  WORSHIP.  145 

worship  as  an  emotion,  and  as  the  indoctrination  and 
instruction  upon  which  a  sermon  is  based.  Many 
sermons  are  worship,  as  many  sermons  are  poetry. 
Some  sermons  are  dramas,  some  poems,  some  descrip- 
tions ;  but,  after  all,  taking  it  comprehensively  in  a 
pastor's  life,  we  consider  the  sermon  as  the  element  of 
instruction. 

Q.  Ought  not  all  the  elements  of  our  nature  to  enter  into 
worship  ?  And  does  not  the  sermon  represent  the  intellectual 
nature?  , 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  The  sermon  represents  the  intel- 
lectual nature.  That  is  the  foundation  from  which 
you  start.  Now,  I  do  not  think  that  the  hymn  does, 
nor  the  prayer.  They  commence  at  once  with  feeling 
as  something  already  generated,  and,  as  I  have  just 
said,  represent  and  develop  the  emotional  element  of 
worship. 


VI 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS. 

PUEPOSE,  this  afternoon,  to  speak  upon 
some  of  the  social  forces  that  are  to  be 
developed  and  employed  in  church  life  and 
activity. 

PASTOKAL  VISITING. 

This  brings  me  naturally,  first,  to  speak  upon  the 
matter  of  pastoral  visitation  more  directly  than  I  did 
last  year,  when  I  touched  it  only  as  collateral  to  some- 
thing else.  Many  reasons  which  once  made  pastoral 
visitations  important  no  longer  exist.  There  was  a 
time  when  there  were  no  schools,  few  books,  no  papers, 
little  discussion,  and  when  popular  intelligence  was 
very  low ;  when  even  the  ministers,  the  main  body  of 
them,  were  not  as  well  instructed  in  religious  things  as 
the  average  citizens  now  are ;  when  religious  truth,  if 
conveyed  at  all,  must  be  conveyed  by  the  professional 
teachers  of  religion.  Under  such  circumstances,  it 
behooved  the  pastor  to  go  from  house  to  house,  in- 
doctrinating and  catechising  the  children.  There  were 
peculiar  reasons,  also,  when  men  believed  that  the 
ordinances  were  special  channels  of  grace  which  the 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  147 

ministry  alone  possessed  and  controlled,  why  the  ad- 
ministrators of  those  ordinances  should  be  among  their 
people,  not  only  in  sickness  and  in  death,  but  also  in 
various  familiar  relations  in  life.  Our  churches  —  I 
mean  the  non-hierarchical  churches  —  have  parted  with 
these  beliefs  ;  and  all  those  reasons  that  inhered  in  the 
superiority  of  the  ministry  over  the  great  brotherhood 
have  passed  away. 

MODERN  REASONS  FOR  IT. 

But  there  are  other  reasons  which  justify  the  con- 
tinuance of  an  assiduous  visitation  on  the  part  of 
pastors.  In  the  first  place,  because  a  man  wants,  for 
his  own  sake,  to  know  intimately  those  to  whom  he 
is  to  preach.  Paul  said,  "  Ye  are  our  epistles,  known 
and  read  of  all  men."  He  might  have  said,  "  Ye  are 
our  texts,"  for  he  derived  much,  especially  of  the  argu- 
mentative portions  of  his  epistles,  from  the  known 
feelings,  prejudices,  beliefs,  or  non-beliefs  of  those  peo- 
ple to  whom  he  came ;  so  much  so  that,  upon  a  close 
reading,  one  almost  thinks  he  can  see  the  color  of  the 
churches  in  the  tenor  of  the  Pauline  epistles. 

In  our  day,  the  style  of  theology  has  changed.  You 
will  be  compelled  to  change  with  it.  There  are  great 
causes  at  work,  quite  independent  of  mere  individual 
volition.  Men  tell  us  we  must  go  back  again  and  pursue 
the  old  sound  doctrinal  systems ;  but  you  cannot  get 
back.  The  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars  are  against 
you.  There  is  a  movement,  there  is  an  aerial  gulf- 
stream,  and  you  are  swept  away  from  that  which  was 
appropriate  to  the  anterior  state.  That  which  fitted, 
the  condition  of  men  earlier  than  our  time  does  not  fit 


148  LECTURES   ON  PHEACIIING. 

our  time,  and  has  been,  or  is  being,  sloughed  off. 
Preaching  has  become  a  great  deal  more  natural  and 
less  artificial.  It  has  more  of  life-form  and  life-force, 
and  less  of  the  abstract  and  metaphysical  Not  that  it 
will  ever  disavow  metaphysics  or  abstractions,  not  that 
it  will  ever  be  concrete,  absolutely,  —  that  is  not  pos- 
sible,—  but  it  has  largely  assumed  a  form  in  which 
personal  elements  and  personal  sympathies  mingle. 

Now,  this  style  of  preaching,  above  all  othe*s,  de- 
mands that  one  should  reinvigorate  himself  by  contact 
with  life  and  with  men.  You  will  find  that,  in  dealing 
with  all  those  themes  which  go  to  the  source  of  motive, 
which  touch  sympathy,  which  affect  the  hearts  of  men, 
you  will  be  very  ^superficial,  you  will  be  very  poor  in. 
power,  unless  you  are  intimately  mixed  up  with  the 
life  of  those  to  whom  you  preach,  and  to  whom  you 
bring  the  gospel.  A  man  may,  for  instance,  have  his 
pastorate  in  a  country  village,  and,  mingling  with  his 
people,  he  may  write  a  series  of  discourses,  which,  if  he 
were  elected  pastor  of  Yale  College,  would  be  abso- 
lutely absurd  to  be  preached  here ;  and  yet  they  may 
be  effective  sermons  of  the  gospel.  They  may  take 
on  so  much  color,  they  may  have  such  form  and 
shape,  such  modes  of  application  to  the  unstudied  vil- 
lage life,  that  if  they  were  preached  to  young  men  of 
entirely  scholastic  habits,  they  would  have  little  rela- 
tion to  them. 

It  would  be  very  likely  to  be  so,  too,  if  ministers  in 
general  should  make  their  sermons  for  the  college.  I 
can  conceive  of  one  making  exceedingly  able  sermons  for 
college  classes,  which,  when  taken  out  into  the  country, 
would  put  the  parish  to  sleep.  And  for  this  reason, 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL   ELEMENTS.  149 

that  preaching  has  to  be  vital  and  effective,  it  should 
derive  a  great  deal  of  its  element  from  the  known  life 
and  want  of  the  men  for  whom  the  sermon  is  a  med- 
ical prescription. 

IMPORTANCE   OF  KNOWING  THE  PEOPLE. 

Now,  in  ordinary  pastoral  life,  a  man  must  get  ac- 
quainted with  his  people.  This  is  hard  for  some;  it 
grows  •  easier  by  practice.  Men  may  come  to  such  a 
knowledge  of  their  people  that  they  have  less  and  less 
need  to  visit  them  for  their  own  sake,  for  the  sake  of 
their  preparation.  And,  lastly,  a  man  who  has  a  natu- 
ral aptitude  for  it,  and  has  had  large  experience  and 
been  long  in  the  field,  may  come  to  that  state  that,  so 
far  as  he  himself  is  concerned,  he  feels  almost  what  is 
in  the  air,  he  knows  what  ails  people  without  hearing, 
or  almost  without  talking  with  them.  But  this  is  not 
the  ordinary  experience. 

So,  then,  for  the  sake  of  a  man's  own  freshness,  vital- 
ity, directness,  humanity,  —  that  is,  preaching  to  that 
which  is  human  in  men,  —  for  all  these  reasons,  visita- 
tion is  desirable. 

FREEDOM  FROM  CLASS  INFLUENCES. 

Then  we  should  maintain  visitation  for  our  own 
sakes  on  still  another  ground,  and  that  is  to  keep  our- 
selves aloof  from  class  or  professional  influences.  It 
is  very  desirable  that  any  class  of  men  following  the 
same  general  pursuit  —  physicians,  lawyers,  ministers 
—  should  see  much  of  each  other.  The  esprit  de  corps 
is  not  only  a  source  of  refreshment,  but  there  is  great 
instruction  in  it.  But  then,  men  are  very  strongly  in- 


150  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

clined  to  become  selfish,  to  be  absorbed  in  their  class,  to 
think  and  to  sympathize  after  the  manner  of  their  kind. 
Now,  for  the  minister,  above  all  men,  it  is  a  necessity  that 
he  should  sympathize  with  humanity  from  the  top  to  the 
bottom ;  with  all  men,  not  with  one  class  of  men ;  not 
with  the  best  men,  not  with  men  of  purest  thought 
alone,  because  that  unfits  him  to  deal  familiarly  and 
easily  with  men  who  have  no  such  habit  of  thought. 
As  the  steward  and  the  cook  must  know  the  tastes  of 
those  for  whom  they  are  preparing  the  table  from  day 
to  day,  so  the  minister  must  know  the  taste  and  the 
wants  of  those  for  whom  he  spreads  food  in  the  pulpit 
from  Sunday  to  Sunday;  and  if  you  get  into  class 
habits,  you  will  be  a  minister  for  ministers,  but  not  for 
the  people.  And  visitation  tends  largely  to  break  that 
up ;  especially  if  you  visit  not  the  select  families,  not 
the  places  where  it  is  pleasant  to  go,  but  everybody. 
Take  your  own  pleasure  along  with  you,  and  be  glad  to 
see  everybody  and  anybody.  The  minister  should  cut 
the  loaf  of  society,  not  horizontally,  but  vertically,  and 
take  it  with  all  there  is  in  it,  from  top  to  bottom. 
And  you  will  find  —  as  it  is  in  the  housewife's  cake 
sometimes  —  that  the  raisins  are  pretty  much  all  at 
the  bottom. 

GAINING  THE  CONFIDENCE  OF  PEOPLE. 

Then,  it  is  very  desirable  that  the  minister  should 
have  the  confidence  and  the  sympathy  of  his  people, 
that  he  should  be  warmed  and  upheld  by  them.  Noth- 
ing contributes  so  much  to  this  as  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  them,  man  by  man,  child  by  child,  all 
through  the  parish.  If  a  man  has  naturally  ge- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL   ELEMENTS.  151 

nial  manners,  and  is  a  man  of  genius,  and  delights 
people  on  Sunday,  they  gather  around  him  for  that 
reason.  He  gets  their  sympathy  somewhat  in  that 
way.  But  ordinarily  we  ought  to  begin  with  the  pre- 
sumption that  we  are  not  men  of  genius.  They  who 
think  they  are  geniuses  when  they  begin,  seldom  have 
reason  to  think  so  when  they  end;  and  if  you  are 
one,  you  will  find  it  out  farther  on.  You  would  better 
begin  as  though  you  were  simply  persons  of  fair  average 
intelligence,  whose  life-facts  are  to  be  developed  by  in- 
dustry and  close  adherence  to  all  the  known  paths  of 
experience.  In  going  among  your  people,  to  draw 
them  to  you  and  to  open  their  hearts  and  their  sym- 
pathies by  pastoral  visitation,  you  prepare  the  ground. 
A  minister  who  does  not  visit  very  much,  in  an  ordinary 
parish,  is  like  a  man  that  sows  his  seed  in  the  spring 
before  he  has  plowed  the  ground.  If  you  visit,  that 
plows  them ;  then  preach,  as  you  have  your  furrows 
already  open  where  the  seed  may  fall ;  then  harrow 
them,  and,  in  due  time,  we  may  hope  to  see  the  result. 

TWO   SPECIAL  CONDITIONS  FOR  VISITING. 

There  are  two  conditions  of  society  in  which  visiting 
should  abound.  First,  it  should  become  pre-eminently 
conspicuous  and  mainly  instrumental  in  your  ministry, 
where  you  are  thrown  among  people  who  do  not  care 
about  going  to  church.  And,  secondly,  it  should 
abound  in  those  conditions  where  people,  when  they 
do  go,  are  little  interested ;  in.  other  words,  where  they 
are  barren  and  you  are  barren.  In  many  communities 
the  church  is  a  very  small  thing ;  there  is  very  little 
of  it ;  and  yet  the  population  is  large.  Now,  the  people 


152          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

are  all  yours.  A  genuine  fisherman  being  told  that 
the  stream  above  the  dam  is  full  of  trout,  only  nobody 
can  catch  them,  —  why,  his  blood  is  all  on  fire !  He 
says,  "I  cannot  catch  them?  You  will  see  whether 
I  can't ! "  And  he  will  meditate  about  those  trout  night 
and  day,  and  he  will  catch  them,  for  his  ambition  is 
inspired.  A  minister  going  into  a  community  where 
there  are  but  few  that  come  to  church  ought  to  have 
his  whole  soul  stirred  within  him.  "Not  come  to 
church !  They  shall  come  to  church.  If  they  do  not, 
the  church  shall  go  to  them."  You  go  into  a  community 
not  to  be  snubbed.  Let  no  man  despise  your  youth  or 
your  inefficiency.  That  is  a  genuine  field  for  pride. 

HARD    FIELDS. 

When  you  go  into  a  community,  make  up  your  mind, 
"  I  don't  back  out  of  this  community.  I  have  been 
sent  here,  and,  after  due  consideration  and  investigation, 
here  am  I.  I  did  not  come  to  be  defeated,  and  I  shall 
conquer ;  standing,  or  stooping,  or  kneeling,  I  am  going 
to  have  my  way  in  this  community,  and  these  people 
shall  have  the  gospel."  If  they  are  pirates,  gamblers, 
smugglers,  drunkards,  racers,  sporting-men,  no  matter, 
they  are  men  ;  and  if  you  believe  that  the  gospel  is  the 
power  of  God  for  salvation,  you  have  got  it.  Do 
you  mean  to  stand  and  let  any  community  overbear 
you,  or  drive  you  out  ?  With  all  manner  of  zeal  and 
patience,  with  all  manner  of  enthusiasm  and  affection, 
and  by  such  measures  as  are  necessary,  —  if  one  thing 
won't  do,  try  another ;  if  that  won't  do,  try  another ; 
but  maintain  yourself  there,  secure  a  lodgment  and. 
gain  the  victory.  In  going  into  such  a  community,  I 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  153 

do  not  care  how  well  you  preach,  they  won't  for  a  year 
or  two  find  that  out ;  but  you  should  go  among  them,  go 
to  those  that  do  not  expect  you,  go  to  those  that  do  not 
like  you.  I  heard  old  Dr.  Humphrey  say  that  where 
he  was  first  settled  there  was  a  man  very  much  opposed 
to  him,  a  farmer;  and  the  Doctor,  who  had  been 
brought  up  on  a  farm  and  counted  himself  something 
in  the  harvest-field,  went  out  to  visit  the  old  man  in  his 
field,  where  he  was  reaping.  It  was  before  the  time 
even  of  cradles,  much  more  that  of  mowing-machines. 
The  man  proposed  to  go  back  to  the  house  and  entertain 
the  Doctor  respectfully.  "No,  no,"  said  Dr.  Humphreys ; 
and  he  threw  off  his  coat.  "  Give  me  a  sickle;  we  can 
talk  as  we  work."  So  he  took  hold,  and  beat  the  man  all 
out  of  his  own  field,  sickling.  With  that  went  all  the 
old  fellow's  prejudice;  he  was  one  of  the  Doctor's  right- 
hand  men  after  that.  There  lived  over  on  the^other 
side  of  the  street  in  Lawrenceburg,  where  first  I  had 
my  settlement,  a  very  profane  man,  who  was  counted 
ugly.  I  understood  that  he  had  said  some  very  bitter 
things  of  me.  I  went  right  over  into  his  store,  and  sat 
down  on  the  counter  to  talk  with  him.  I  happened  in 
often,  —  day  in  and  day  out.  My  errand  was  to  make 
him  like  me.  I  did  make  him  like  me,  —  and  all  the 
children  too ;  and  when  I  left,  two  or  three  years  after- 
ward, it  was  his  house  that  was  open  to  take  me  and 
all  my  family  for  the  week  after  I  gave  up  my  rooms. 
And  to  the  day  of  his  death  I  do  not  believe  the  old 
man  could  mention  my  name  without  crying.  It  was 
my  good  fortune  to  meet  his  daughter,  or  daughter- 
in-law,  in  the  cars  during  my  latest  trip  in  the  West, 
and  it  brought  back  this  scene,  which  I  had  quite  for- 


154          LECTURES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

gotten,  and  of  which  I  give  you  now  the  benefit  by  way 
of  illustration. 

HEART- WOKK  INSTEAD   OF  HEAD-WORK. 

Another  point :  there  seem  to  be  in  the  ministry 
men  of  very  considerable  force,  men  of  a  good  deal  of 
one  kind  of  tact  and  genius,  but  they  do  not  run  to 
ideas.  There  are  a  great  many  churches  whose  force  is 
supposed  to  lie  in  the  pulpit ;  but  it  does  not.  And 
yet  they  hold  together  a  congregation ;  it  grows,  it 
mellows,  it  becomes  liberal.  That  is  the  case  in  which 
a  man  must  apply  the  power  that  is  in  him  personally 
by  visitation,  —  making  up  for  the  barrenness  of  his 
sermons  by  the  richness  of  his  own  heart.  If  it  has 
not  been  given  to  him  to  have  a  lighthouse  in  the 
head,  if  the  lighthouse  is  hi  the  heart,  let  him  go 
personally  where  its  light  can  shine  often  amongst  the 
people.  I  have  heard  persons  say,  when  a  brilliant 
preacher  came  into  town,  and  there  was  every  reason 
why  they  should  leave  their  parish  and  go  to  hear 
the  new-comer,  "Still,  I  don't  know;  we  have  had 
our  own  minister  so  long,  and  he  is  so  good,  and  we  all 
love  him  so  much,  and  our  children  have  all  been 
brought  up  under  his  preaching,  so  that  he  has  meshed 
them,  he  has  spun  himself  all  around  them,  —  it  is 
almost  like  a  bereavement  to  go  out  of  his  church ;  and 
that  in  spite  of  his  sermons  too." 

When  people  won't  come  to  hear  you  preach,  do  you 
go  and  talk  to  them ;  and  when  they  do  come  to  hear 
you,  and  you  have  hardly  anything  to  preach  about, 
then  go  to  them  all  the  more.  There  are  hundreds  of 
men  that  talk  well  and  preach  badly.  There  are  a 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  155 

great  many  that  I  meet  on  the  street  who  talk  well  to 
me,  and  who,  as  ministers,  are  genial,  whose  faces  are 
full  of  inspiration ;  they  make  points,  and  they  have 
an  incident  or  a  story  to  tell,  and  besides  all  that  they 
have  a  smile  that  rewards  me,  and  I  like  to  meet  them 
dearly.  But  oh,  I  don't  like  to  go  and  hear  them 
preach ! 

So  then,  for  either  of  these  reasons,  and  for  those 
that  went  before,  —  pastoral  visitation  ! 

GENERAL   SOCIAL  AMENITY  AMONG  CHURCH-MEMBERS. 

I  wish  now  to  speak  upon  something  which  is  coming 
into  vogue,  but  which  is  comparatively  recent,  and  has 
not  yet  received  that  attention  in  the  development  of 
church  and  Christian  life  that  it  ought  to  have ;  I  mean 
the  social  sympathy  of  the  people,  that  feeling  of  inter- 
est in  each  other  which  belongs  to  church  communion. 
That  part  of  the  community  that  is  given  to  your 
charge  ought  to  be  made  really  to  love  each  other.  We 
read  about  that,  and  hear  about  it;  think  about  it! 
What  is,  on  the  whole,  the  vital  sympathy  of  church- 
members  with  each  other  ?  Now  I  shall  not  be  thought 
personal,  because  I  know  scarcely  a  soul  in  New  Haven ; 
but  take  the  three  churches  which  stand  on  the  Com- 
mon. Take  them  family  by  family,  and  ask :  What  is 
the  real  sympathy,  the  electric  thrill,  the  gladness  that 
they  have  at  meeting  each  other  when  they  go  to 
church  on  Sunday,  or  after  they  come  out  of  church  ? 
How  is  it  that,  in  traveling,  or  upon  the  street,  or  any- 
where, you  feel  the  fact  that  a  man  is  a  member  of 
the  same  church  with  yourself  to  be  a  bond  of  sym- 
pathy ?  If  a  man  who  has  married  your  sister,  but 


156          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

whom  you  have  never  seen  before,  comes  into  the 
house  after  a  distant  journey,  and  you  meet  him  for  the 
first  time,  his  relationship  with  the  family  is  a  reason 
for  gladness  over  and  above  anything  you  may  find  in 
him.  He  is  himself  and  your  sister  too ;  he  represents 
both  to  you. 

Every  Christian  is  supposed  to  represent  to  every 
other  one  the  Christ  that  loved  him  out  of  sin  and  into 
redemption.  There  ought  to  be  a  genuine  thrill  of  joy 
on  meeting.  What  is  the  fact  ? 

IMPERFECT  KINDS. 

Well,  there  is  this :  highly  organized  churches  have 
a  spurious  kind  of  sympathy.  It  is  the  sympathy  of 
ecclesiastical  or  theological  selfishness.  In  times  of 
high  controversy,  when  one  church  is  orthodox  and 
another  is  heterodox,  —  and  sometimes,  you  know,  or- 
thodoxy and  heterodoxy  are  interchangeable  terms,  and 
they  shift  about  promiscuously,  all  the  orthodox  people 
feel  an  intense  interest  in  each  other,  for  the  battle 
has  come  to  be  hot.  The  lines  are  drawn.  People 
are  glad  you  belong  to  "  our  church."  They  say, 
"Didn't  our  minister  give  it  to  them  last  Sunday?" 
A  little  combativeness  quickens  sympathy  very  much. 
So,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  kind  of  esprit  de  corps 
in  a  church  which  represents  itself  as  the  only  church, 
or,  if  not  the  only  church,  then  the  best  of  the  lot.  In 
Methodist  class-meetings,  I  have  often  heard  men  thank 
God  that  they  ever  came  into  the  Methodist  Church. 
But  it  is  the  Methodist  Church  they  love ;  it  is  not  the 
Christ  that  is  behind  all  men.  I  hear  men  congratulate 
themselves  that  they  are  in  the  Baptist  Church,  —  often- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  157 

times  I  congratulate  them  too.  I  know  men  who  feel 
that,  being  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  they  are  high  and 
dry  above  all  others.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  like  a  man 
because  he  belongs  to  the  same  church  that  you  do,  and 
another  to  like  him  because  he  is  a  man,  and  a  man 
whom  Christ  has  loved,  and  whom  he  is  redeeming  by 
the  power  of  his  blood.  Ecclesiastical  sympathies  are 
not  to  go  for  nothing,  but  they  are  of  the  lowest  value. 
They  are  too  often  put  in  the  very  highest  place.  I 
would  not  put  them  on  a  low  plane  ;  but,  after  all,  the 
deepest  feeling  of  sympathy  between  man  and  man 
should  not  be  in  respect  to  mere  ecclesiastical  or  theo- 
logical peculiarities. 

Then  there  is  a  spiritual  or  religious  sympathy  ex- 
isting in  churches.  By  this  I  mean  that  where  men 
are  genuinely  converted  and  truly  spiritually  minded, 
they  have  a  sort  of  vague  and  general  regard  and 
sympathy  for  the  body  of  Christ.  I  think  that,  for  the 
most  part,  our  New  England  Orthodox  churches  get 
very  little  further  than  that  (I  may  perhaps  be  too  un- 
measured in  the  statement,  but  that  is  my  impression). 

Now,  there  is  another  kind  of  sympathy  than  that ; 
namely,  the  sympathy  which  men  may  have  with 
each  other  on  the  highest  spiritual  grounds.  I  admit 
that  to  be  the  highest;  I  admit  that  if  the  de- 
velopment of  the  highest  form  of  spiritual  experience 
were  so  prevalent  as  to  dominate  other  forms,  and  all 
men  could  come  together  and  touch  each  other  on 
that  ground,  that  would  be  in  every  sense  the  best. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  only  the  twentieth,  or 
the  thirtieth,  or  the  fortieth  individual  that  is  compe- 
tent to  that  highest  form. 


158  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 


THE  TRUE  PRACTICAL  PLANE. 

There  are  comparatively  few  who  can  feel  a  large, 
intelligent,  generous  sympathy  with  men  on  the  highest 
spiritual  and  religious  grounds.  And  in  regard  to  the 
great  mass  of  men,  if  we  come  into  sympathy  with  them, 
we  must  do  it  on  the  intermediate  plane,  namely,  where 
their  humanity  is,  and  on  those  grounds  which  are  com- 
mon to  mankind ;  on  grounds  of  generosity,  of  simple 
common  kindness,  of  ordinary  intercourse.  There  is 
where  the  play  of  sympathy  is  to  be.  Every  church 
ought  to  bring  its  members  together  in  such  a  way 
that  they  shall  like  each  other, — not  because  they 
are  perfect  (for  then  how  many  would  there  be  in 
fellowship  ? ),  not  because  they  are  of  this  grade  or  of 
that  church ;  but  from  a  feeling  of  generous,  glowing, 
joyous,  glorious  fellowship  ;  fellowship  which,  while  it 
may  begin  or  terminate  in  the  very  highest  moral  ex- 
periences, takes  in  all  forms  of  mutual  kindliness,  clear 
down  to  the  lowest  physical  conditions.  Thus,  to  every 
member  in  the  church  there  should  be  the  assurance 
that  he  is  welcome  to  all  the  others,  or,  at  all  events, 
to  the  great  body  of  the  Christian  church.  Now,  is 
this  the  case?  Do  men  get  together  on  Sunday  in 
that  way  ?  Do  they  go  away  from  church  on  Sun- 
day with  any  such  glow  as  this  ?  As  a  general  rule, 
I  think  not.  The  point  I  wish  to  make  is,  that,  in 
the  administration  of  the  social  affairs  of  the  church, 
provision  should  be  made  by  which  the  members  would 
see  each  other,  not  only  as  church-members,  but  in 
their  ordinary  relations,  —  as  neighbors,  as  friends,  as 
citizens,  as  business  men,  as  common  folks. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  159 


PROVISION  FOR  SOCIAL   GATHERINGS. 

Over  and  above  the  sympathy  which  you  beget  by 
Sunday  services  and  week-day  lectures  and  prayer- 
meetings,  there  ought  to  be  meetings  where  people 
gather  simply  because  they  like  each  other;  not  to 
talk  formally  and  stiffly  about  moral  things,  but  to  talk 
just  as  they  would  at  home.  This  can  be  done  in  a 
variety  of  ways.  In  the  first  place,  I  think  our  churches 
are  being  built  more  and  more  with  large  social  accom- 
modations; parlors  to  the  church  are  becoming  quite 
as  indispensable  as  pews  and  pulpits.  This  is  a  sign  of 
the  gradual  change  which  is  going  on  in  this  direction ; 
and  it  is  a  very  admirable  change.  No  church  ought  to 
be  built  after  this,  in  city  or  country,  that  has  not  in 
connection  with  it  either  a  place  set  apart  as  a  parlor, 
or  a  room  which  by  some  little  change  of  seats  could  be 
made  into  a  parlor.  There  ought  to  be,  from  week  to 
week,  or  every  other  week,  during  the  largest  part  of 
the  year,  such  little  gatherings  as  shall  mingle  the  peo- 
ple together  and  make  them  like  one  another.  There 
are  few  persons  that  you  do  not  like  better,  in  a  certain 
measure,  if  you  meet  them  often,  provided  that  you 
are  at  all  charitable  yourself;  and  there  are  few  that 
you  will  like  as  well,  if  you  meet  them  too  often  and 
carry  the  intimacy  too  far.  But  up  to  a  certain  point 
—  and  you  will  never  be  likely  to  transcend  it  in  these 
church  gatherings — you  will  like  everybody  better. 
You  find  this  man  is  not  so  stingy  as  you  thought  he 
was  ;  that  man  not  so  cold-hearted  as  he  seemed  to  be ; 
this  woman  not  so  sharp-tongued  as  she  had  the  name 
of  being ;  and  there  are  a  great  many  other  qualities  of 


100          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

heart  and  head  that  come  out.  "Why !  that  old  dul- 
lard never  laughed  at  a  joke,  and  you  thought  it  was 
not  in  the  power  of  man  to  make  him  laugh  in  that 
way.  You  find  there  is  something  in  him.  There  is  a 
great  deal  in  everybody ;  but  everybody  does  not  al- 
ways know  how  to  get  it  out.  Society,  intercourse, 
fellowship  in  church  life,  develops  these  things.  Men 
respect  each  other,  they  get  over  their  little  difficulties 
more  easily,  they  fall  into  quarrels  less  easily.  There 
are  a  thousand  ways  in  which  church  life,  by  being  de- 
veloped in  this  manner,  socially  thrives  as  it  otherwise 
would  not.  This  is  not  to  be  considered  as  a  substitute 
for  meetings ;  it  is  supplementary  and  auxiliary. 

PICNICS. 

Then  I  am  in  favor  of  multiplying  picnics  as  much 
as  possible,  and  all  sorts  of  little  out-of-doors  observ- 
ances for  the  summer.  In  Boston,  they  used  once  a 
year  to  go  down  the  Bay  for  a  chowder-party ;  all  the 
concomitants  of  that  were  agreeable,  and  the  people 
who  went  were,  to  be  sure,  the  more  select  part  of  the 
congregation,  but  it  did  much  to  help  them  in  their 
social  life.  It  did  much  to  mix  the  people  together 
and  make  the  church  more  harmonious  and  homo- 
geneous. It  is  very  desirable,  too,  for  another  reason, 
—  especially  in  cities,  —  namely,  that  our  people  are 
of  all  sorts.  They  are  from  the  top,  the  middle,  and 
the  bottom  of  society.  The  gradations  are  infinite,  and 
it  very  desirable  that  rich  people  should  mingle  with 
poor  people,  that  persons  of  culture  and  refinement 
should  be  kindly  and  intimately  associated  with  per- 
sons of  less  refinement. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.      161 


THE  CHURCH  SHOULD  BE  A  HOUSEHOLD. 

It  is  very  desirable  that  you  should  temper  the  body 
of  Christ  together,  so  that  every  one  of  the  members 
of  the  church  shall  have  a  pride  in  the  gifts  of  every 
other  one.  Do  you  think  that  in  a  household 
where  the  oldest  daughter  is  an  artist,  and  paints ; 
and  the  second  girl  is  a  musical  genius,  who,  though 
she  cannot  paint,  is  brilliant  in  playing  the  piano; 
and  the  third  girl  is  the  housekeeper,  eminent  in 
economy  and  tact,  who  likes  entertaining  and  likes 
management,  and  that  is  her  forte ;  and  the  boys  are, 
respectively,  one  a  merchant,  another  a  lawyer,  and  the 
other  a  physician,  and  they  all  excel,  —  do  you  suppose 
that  when  they  come  together  they  envy  each  other  ? 
Don't  you  suppose  that  the  boys  are  all  proud  of  the  sis- 
ters, and  the  sisters  of  the  brothers  ?  —  of  this  one,  be- 
cause she  has  a  genius  for  painting,  and  of  that  one,  be- 
cause she  has  a  genius  for  music,  and  of  the  other,  be- 
cause she  has  those  fine  domestic  traits ;  of  this  one, 
because  he  is  a  successful  merchant,  and  that  one,  be- 
cause he  is  an  able  lawyer,  and  of  the  young  doctor, 
because  his  last  thesis  was  published  in  the  "  Surgical 
Eeview  "  ?  They  all  glory  in  each  other.  They  sit 
around  and  look  with  glowing  eyes  upon  one  another. 
The  gifts  of  each  belong  to  all. 

Now,  according  to  the  theory  of  Paul,  —  or  the 
theory  of  Christ,  from  whom  Paul  got  everything, 
(the  Jews  say,  "  Where  would  Christianity  have  been 
if  it  had  not  been  for  Paul  ? "  and  I  say,  Where 
would  Paul  have  been,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
Christ?)  so,  according  to  the  theory  of  Paul  and 


162          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

Christ,  the  church  is  a  body,  and  you  are  members 
one  of  another,  and  what  stirs  one  stirs  all,  and  the 
gifts  of  every  one  in  the  church  belong  to  all,  and 
the  feebler  members  ought  to  be  proud  of  the  gifts 
of  the  more  eminent  members.  Is  it  so  ?  is  that  the 
feeling  of  fellowship,  oneness,  fraternity,  unity  in  the 
church ;  or  are  not  men  envying  each  other's  gifts  and 
opportunities  ?  Is  there  not  infinite  friction  in  the 
movement  of  the  wheels,  because  the  passions  of  envy 
and  jealousy  and  selfishness  are  permitted  to  mix  so 
much  in  church  life  ?  You  must  get  rid  of  those  things. 
You  cannot  preach  them  out  of  the  church.  You  can- 
not legislate  them  out  of  the  church.  You  cannot  get 
them  out  of  the  church  so  long  as  the  Devil  is  alive ; 
but  then  you  can  go  a  great  ways  toward  it,  if  you 
knead  the  church  together.  You  never  saw  a  good 
batch  of  bread  in  your  life  that  was  not  kneaded  a 
good  deal ;  and  you  never  saw  a  church  that  was  really 
good  which  was  not  a  good  deal  kneaded. 

THE  RIGHT  USE   OF  THEOLOGY. 

I  think  that  this  idea  of  working  in  the  church  to- 
wards personal  fellowship  and  personal  unity  and  sym- 
pathy is  far  more  prevalent  in  the  New  Testament 
than  in  theology.  It  must  be,  of  course.  Theology 
is  osteology,  and  a  skeleton  is  a  poor  thing  to  live  with. 
But  that  which  makes  a  man  handsome  is  not  being 
without  bones.  Some  people  say  occasionally,  because 
we  hit  theology  a  slap,  that  we  do  not  believe  in  it. 
Indeed,  we  do  believe  in  it ;  but  we  believe  in  some- 
thing else  besides.  Theology  ought  to  be  inside ;  it  is 
the  frame  on  which  you  build  everything.  We  believe  in 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL   ELEMENTS.  '163 

the  sncculency  and  the  elasticity  of  the  nerve,  and  the 
bloom  and  beauty  of  the  skin  that  overlays  it  all.  But 
what  would  all  these  things  be  if  there  were  not  any 
bones  there  to  lay  them  upon,  and  by  which  they  could 
stand  up  and  be  operated  ?  Men  would  all  be  gelatinous ; 
no  better  than  so  many  jelly-fish.  So  theology  has  its 
own  sphere  and  function.  But,  more  than  this,  even 
ethical  preaching  does  not  ordinarily  aim  at  that  ideal 
fellowship  and  unity  which  were  sought  after  by  the 
Apostles  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  That  is  a  spiritual 
kingdom. 

THE   SUPREMACY  OF   SPIRITUAL   QUALITIES. 

I  think  men  preach  a  great  deal  more  in  the 
line  of  the  seventh  of  Romans,  —  then  they  are  Cal- 
vinists,  —  or  the  eighth  of  Romans,  —  and  then  they 
are  apt  to  be  Universalists  or  Arminians,  —  a  great  deal 
more,  in  short,  in  the  line  of  the  deep  doctrinal  experi- 
ences, than  they  do  in  that  of  the  thirteenth  chapter  of 
First  Corinthians :  "  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels,  and  have  not  love,  I  am  become 
as  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  And  then 
Paul  goes  on  to  say,  "  Though  I  have  all  zeal  and  all  faith 
and  all  knowledge,  and  though  I  have  everything,  if  I 
have  not  love,  I  have  nothing."  Then  comes  that  mag- 
nificent chant,  than  which  there  never  was  a  nobler 
since  the  angels  sang  the  coming  of  Christ,  that  mar- 
velous description  of  love  that  does  not  linger  or  grow 
weary,  but  rushes  through  ;  every  stroke  is  like  the 
stroke  of  Michael  Angelo's  brush  that  brings  out  the 
glowing  traits  !  And  then  that  still  more  profound,  mys- 
terious, and  marvelous  passage  in  which  it  is  said  that 


164  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

all  the  things  that  men  know,  and  think,  and  believe, 
are  relative  to  time.  Knowledge  shall  pass  away, 
theology,  philosophy,  mysteries,  prophecies,  shall  all 
cease,  but  there  are  some  things  that  will  not  pass 
away,  —  and  what  are  these  ?  Faith,  hope,  love.  These 
abide.  Death,  by  the  great  principle  of  relativity,  will 
wipe  out  thousands  of  experiences  and  things  that  are 
important  to  us  while  we  are  here,  and  they  will  not  go 
beyond  the  grave.  But  there  are  some  things  that  will 
go  beyond  it,  and  are  a  part  of  immortality ;  and  these 
are  faith,  hope,  and  love. 

Now,  the  power  of  preaching  should  be  to  develop 
in  men  by  the  social  life  the  affinities  and  affections  that 
are  in  these  great  qualities,  and  that  carry  them  through 
life  and  out  of  the  present  into  the  eternal  life. 

SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 

The  next  topic  of  which  I  will  speak  under  the  head 
of  the  social  forces  is  the  Sunday-school ;  a  subject  so 
familiar  to  you  that  I  shall,  perhaps,  be  relieved  from 
saying  much.  I  think  that  Sunday-schools  are  the 
young  people's  church.  Although  the  minister  ought 
to  preach  so  that  the  young  people  shall  have  their  por- 
tion in  his  sermons,  yet,  for  a  variety  of  reasons,  going 
to  church  is  not  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  little  children. 
They  are  full  of  life  and  motion,  and  our  habits  of  go- 
ing to  church  are  not  like  those  of  the  Orientals  ;  they 
are  not  like  the  habits  that  existed  upon  the  borders, 
where  mothers  went  to  church  with  their  children,  and 
where  all  $ie  household  duties  were  performed  in  the 
church,  or  by  just  stepping  out  of  the  door,  and  every- 
thing went  on  as  usual.  The  minister  preached  through 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  165 

the  squalls  and  storms  of  discipline,  and  all  manner  of 
domestic  infelicities,  and  what  not  ?  We  have  ordered 
things  so  that  there  is  a  method  in  our  churches,  but  it 
is  a  method  to  which  old  people  can  better  conform 
than  little  children.  They  nestle.  I  am  always  glad 
to  see  a  child  go  to  sleep  in  church.  It  is  one  of  the 
beatitudes.  There  ought  to  be  provision  made  for  chil- 
dren. The  Sunday-school  is  their  part  of  Sunday  ser- 
vice, provided  it  is  properly  conducted,  and  is  in  a  place 
which  is  comfortable  for  children,  and  keyed  to  their 
necessities. 

HOW  CHILDREN   SHOULD  BE  TAUGHT. 

Let  me  say  generally,  without  pausing  to  discuss  the 
whole  question  of  Sunday-schools,  that  it  seems  to  me 
the  fundamental  idea  in  teaching  children  is  not  the 
same  as  that  in  teaching  grown  people.  Grown  people 
need  to  be  taught  not  so  much  ideas  at  first,  as  affections. 
The  world  has  educated  them,  in  respect  to  intelligence, 
in  a  certain  way,  and  the  relative  deficiency  in  adults  is 
in  right  affections.  But  in  little  children  affections  are 
pre-eminent,  and  feeling  is  their  weakness, —  that  is, 
their  strength  ;  for  when  a  thing  is  too  strong  we  always 
call  it  a  weakness.  So  the  prime  purpose  in  Sunday- 
school  work  should  be  to  teach  ideas  to  children,  and 
indoctrinate  them,  —  to  give  instruction.  Not  that  we 
are  to  omit  appeals  to  their  conscience  and  their  affec- 
tions. But  it  is  so  easy  to  beat  the  Sunday-school  up 
into  a  foam,  if  we  only  have  a  zealot  as  a  superintend- 
ent, and  to  have  all  the  children  crying,  and  all  of  them 
full  of  experiences  which  you  know  they  cannot  have. 
You  might,  with  as  much  propriety,  take  a  bucket  of 


166          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

water  and  swing  it  around,  and  call  it  an  ocean,  as  to 
bring  a  little  child  to  me  and  say  that  he  has  these  ex- 
periences which  imply  growth,  width,  and  a  sense  of  in- 
finity. Therefore  I  say  that,  in  instructing  children, 
whether  by  descriptive,  or  didactic,  or  historical  means, 
we  should  do  it  always  through  the  imagination,  —  God 
has  ordained  that  children  should  learn  through  the 
imagination ;  the  Reason  is  Chief  Justice,  but  that  which 
brings  the  case  before  the  court  is  Imagination. 

Children  in  Sunday-school  are  to  receive  instruction, 
for  a  variety  of  reasons.  First,  because  the  children 
need  it ;  and  secondly,  because  it  prevents  the  bringing 
in  of  those  ten  thousand  little  clap-trap  things  that  in- 
terest children,  and  do  nothing  else.  There  is  nothing 
that  interests  a  child  so  much  as  real  knowledge,  whole- 
some instruction,  —  nothing !  When  I  was  a  child,  my 
dear  aunt  Esther  used  to  promise  that  if  I  would  be  a 
good  boy  she  would  read  to  me  on  a  Sunday  afternoon 
about  the  ten  plagues  of  Pharaoh  ;  and  I  was  enough 
of  a  Christian  to  like  to  see  a  fellow  thrashed,  so  I  al- 
ways wanted  to  hear  about  Pharaoh  !  So,  too,  it  was 
with  all  the  inimitable  stories  of  Joseph's  life,  of  Euth, 
and  the  other  histories  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
parables  of  the  New. 

Children  love  knowledge.  Their  inquiries  are  often 
as  salutary  for  you  as  they  are  natural  to  them. 

In  adapting,  therefore,  the  Sunday-school  to  the 
wants  of  children,  treat  them  as  rational  human  be- 
ings. Believe  that  the  foundation  element  in  them  is 
curiosity,  as  you  call  it,  —  that  is,  the  nascent  forms  of 
philosophical  feeling,  the  knowing  states  of  mind  that 
are  to  be  developed  in  them.  In  connection  with  that, 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  167 

but  without  keeping  it  uppermost,  or  rather  keeping  it 
undermost  as  the  foundation,  make  moderate  appeal 
to  the  feelings  of  children.  I  am  opposed,  heartily 
opposed,  to  the  impositions  that  I  see  practiced  on 
children  by  attempting  to  make  them,  at  nine,  ten, 
eleven,  or  twelve  years  old,  do  things  and  feel  things 
that  belong  to  adult  life,  and  do  not  belong  to  children. 
The  idea  that  you  can  organize  them  and  bring  them 
to  pledges,  and  get  them  to  make  promises,  and  put 
them  on  platforms  that  are  pre-eminently  out  of  their 
reach,  it  seems  to  me,  is  absolutely  unfair  to  them. 

MAKE  RELIGION  JOYFUL  TO   CHILDREN. 

Our  Sunday-schools  ought  also  to  be  so  conducted 
that  all  the  associations  of  children  with  the  church 
shall  be  pleasant.  I  feel  an  intense  desire,  which  grows 
stronger  as  I  grow  older,  that  religion  shall  be  to  men 
that  beautiful  thing  which  it  really  is.  It  is  not  a  gaunt 
skeleton ;  it  is  not  a  scarecrow ;  it  is  not  a  prison,  nor 
a  bondage ;  it  is  not  a  chain,  nor  a  shackle ;  it  is  the 
brightness,  the  beauty,  the  joy,  the  triumph  of  sun- 
shine. It  is  liberty  gained  by  those  that  have  been 
endungeoned.  It  is  light  revealing  the  world  in  wonder 
to  men  that  have  been  blind.  It  is  all  sweet  sounds 
coming  in  concord  to  ears  long  since  closed,  or  that 
never  heard.  It  is  liberty,  power.  It  is  all  sweetness 
in  the  soul,  and  ecstatic  hope.  I  hate  asceticism ;  I  hate 
the  bondage  and  the  gloom  which  are  so  often  thought 
to  be  necessary  as  medicines  for  depravity.  Light 
sweeps  away  the  visions  of  the  midnight.  Morning  is 
the  best  cure  for  midnight,  and  I  long  to  have  the  chil- 
dren feel  that  there  is  nothing  in  this  world  more  at- 


168          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

tractive,  more  earnestly  to  be  desired,  than  manhood  in 
Christ  Jesus.  But  ah  !  I  cannot  preach  to  little  chil- 
dren the  clouded  brow ;  I  cannot  preach  the  eye  of  fire, 
nor  the  hand  that  carries  the  iron  scepter.  I  must  preach 
him  who  said,  "  Suffer  them  to  come  unto  me,"  and  said 
it  with  such  sweetness  that  children  spontaneously 
rushed  to  his  arms.  Think  of  what  Christ  must  have 
been,  when  his  disciples  had  to  interfere  between  him 
and  children  that  were  running  to  him,  or  brought  by 
their  mothers.  That  Christ  I  preach ;  and  I  love  to  see 
my  children  —  for  they  are  my  children  —  gather 
around  about  the  knees  of  Jesus  with  the  same  feelings 
that  they  have  toward  father  and  toward  mother,  and 
look  upon  their  companions  and  the  members  of  the 
church  as  though  looking  upon  brothers  and  sisters. 
Thus  gradually  the  thought  is  etherealized  and  lifted  up 
to  the  higher  sphere,  as  their  young  imaginations  and 
the  glories  of  heavenly  relations  are  added  to  the  natu- 
ral affinities  of  the  earthly  state. 

So,  in  our  Sunday-schools,  all  precision  and  rigidity, 
except  so  far  as  is  necessary  for  organic  purposes,  all 
tasking  and  all  government  that  is  painfully  oppressive, 
should  be  omitted.  While  the  Sunday-school  should 
not  be  a  mere  amusement-shop,  while  the  picnics  and 
various  excursions  should  not  predominate  over  the 
moral  ends,  yet  there  should  be  such  a  proportion  of 
them  that  children  should  love  their  Sunday-school 
better  than  anything  else.  I  believe  my  own  Sun- 
day-school children  do.  In  the  providence  of  God 
we  have  about  twenty-five  hundred  or  three  thou- 
sand children  under  my  general  care,  and  I  think 
they  are  proud  of  their  school,  and  love  it.  When 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   SOCIAL   ELEMENTS.  169 

the  new  Bethel  building  was  in  danger  of  taking  fire 
from  a  neighboring  building  that  was  burning,  I  heard 
of  it  and  rushed  down  Hicks  Street,  —  for  it  is  a 
little  bit  of  an  idol  to  me  too,  —  and  I  saw  the  chil- 
dren sitting  on  the  thresholds  of  their  houses,  and  on 
the  streets,  and  holding  each  other's  hands  and  cry- 
ing as  though  their  little  hearts  would  break.  I  said 
to  one  of  the  little  girls,  "  What  is  the  matter  ? "  "  Oh," 
said  she,  "  our  Bethel  is  burning  !  our  Bethel  is  burn- 
ing!" The  children  really  grieved  as  though  it  were 
their  father's  house.  They  love  the  place,  they  love 
everything  about  it,  and  they  love  each  other.  Sun- 
day-schools should  inspire  in  children  this  feeling  of 
love  for  religion,  and  for  the  church,  and  for  all  the 
offices  of  religion. 

I  insist  upon  this  the  more,  because  as  a  child  I 
never  did  love  Sunday-schools.  The  first  one  I  went 
to  was  in  the  southwest  pen  —  or  pew,  as  they  called  it 
—  in  my  father's  old  Litchfield  church.  I  think  there 
were  three  other  wretches  there.  I  had  sat  out  my 
father's  sermon,  and  this  was  the  nooning ;  and  while 
my  little  stomach  cried  "  Gingerbread ! "  they  said 
"Catechism."  I  remember  swinging  my  little  legs  from 
those  high  seats.  I  could  not  reach  half-way  down  to 
the  ground.  It  was,  of  all  things,  grim  and  disconso- 
late ;  for  I  had  to  have  catechism  just  as  much  at  home, — 
it  was  not  a  substitute  at  all  The  next  time  I  went 
to  Sunday-school,  it  was  in  the  Bennett  Street  school- 
house  in  Boston,  after  we  moved  there.  I  think  I  went 
there  two  Sundays.  The  first  Sunday  I  got  along  well, 
I  suppose,  for  it  is  obliterated  from  my  mind,  —  I  sup- 
pose I  was  profited.  On  the  second  Sunday  some  little 


170  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

question  came  up  between  me  and  the  teacher,  and  he 
cuffed  me,  I  think,  and  I  kicked  him,  under  the  seat.  I 
did  not  go  any  more  to  that  school.  So  my  personal 
experience  in  Sunday-schools  has  not  been  particularly 
auspicious. 

But  in  my  present  charge,  my  own  church,  I  think 
the  happier  spirit  I  have  described  belongs  to  our  Sun- 
day-schools. I  speak,  therefore,  of  what  I  have  seen, 
and  testify  that  which  I  do  know,  that  it  is  in  the 
power  of  teachers  and  of  a  church  to  make  a  school 
profoundly  interesting ;  to  crowd  it  full  of  children 
and  keep  it  full ;  to  teach  them  the  fundamental  truths 
of  Christianity  without  neglecting  their  spiritual  affec- 
tions and  religious  feelings  ;  and  to  make  them  love  each 
other  and  love  the  church,  and  associate  with  the  whole 
round  of  religion  the  most  joyous  thoughts  and  feelings. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Would  you  advise  parents  to  compel  their  children  to  go  to 
church,  for  the  sake  of  forming  the  habit,  against  their  inclina- 
tion? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes ;  mournfully,  yes.  I  think  that 
where  children  do  not  wish  to  go  to  church,  as  a  general 
thing  it  is  largely  the  result  of  cause,  and  that  that 
cause  does  not  always  lie  in  the  depravity  of  human 
nature — in  the  child.  Now,  I  was  a  minister's  son, 
and  I  had  to  go  to  meeting,  and  I  knew  it.  Therefore 
I  hardly  ever  tried  to  get  away.  Once  in  a  while  I  es- 
caped ;  but  I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever  understood 
a  single  thing  my  father  preached  about  till  I  was  ten 
years  old  ;  and  my  father  certainly  was  a  good  preacher. 
He  seldom  preached  descriptive  or  historical  sermons ; 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  171 

they  were  almost  always  structural ;  they  had  a  very 
strong  body  of  argument,  united  with  appeal.  He  was 
settled  iu  Litchfield,  where  there  was  a  law  school  and 
a  female  seminary ;  and  he  had  for  a  congregation,  not 
only  astute  farmers  and  able  mechanics,  but  also  many 
lawyers,  and  the  daughters  of  many  of  the  most  culti- 
vated families  in  the  land  at  that  time.  And  his  style 
of  preaching,  unconsciously  to  himself,  was  fitted  to  the 
more  intellectual  part  of  the  congregation.  And  I, — 
poor  little  curmudgeon  !  —  sat  down  in  the  pew,  —  and, 
by  the  by,  the  minister's  pew  was  right  under  the  side 
of  the  pulpit;  the  pulpit  was — less  than  twenty-five 
feet  high,  and  we  were  so  concealed  that  I  could  n't  see 
my  father,  and  should  never  have  known  who  he  was 
if  I  had  not  seen  him  at  home.  I  sat  in  that  high- 
backed  and  high-sided  pew,  and  the  only  light  or  com- 
fort that  I  had,  the  only  consolation  of  the  gospel  ad- 
ministered to  me,  was  the  privilege  of  squeaking  one 
of  those  little  rounds  that  turned  in  the  open  wood- 
work of  the  pew.  Now,  my  mother  was  not  a  cruel 
woman,  but  she  did  some  things  that  I  think  she  has 
always  been  sorry  for,  since  she  has  gone  to  her  rest. 
When  I  would  fall  asleep,  and  really  was  out  of  the 
way  and  no  trouble  to  anybody,  she  would  rap  my  head 
and  wake  me  up.  That  is  treating  children  not  accord- 
ing to  their  nature ;  it  is  not  motherly ;  it  is  not  right. 
Now,  if  children  are  brought  up  where,  however  much 
food  there  may  be  in  the  church  for  adults,  there  is  none 
at  all  for  them,  why  should  they  want  to  go  ?  In  the 
Episcopal  and  the  Eoman  Catholic  churches  there  is 
something  for  children.  In  that  regard  those  churches 
are  far  beyond  us.  A  child  can  follow  the  service  in 


172          LECTUKES  ON  PEEACHING. 

the  book,  can  make  responses,  can  read,  can  sing,  —  and 
there  is  very  much  of  song  service  in  the  Episcopal 
Church.  In  ours,  how  little  is  there  which  is  fitted  to 
the  thought  of  the  children  !  While  we  take  care  of 
adults,  and  provide  for  their  edification,  we  are  in  dan- 
ger of  letting  God's  little  ones  take  care  of  themselves. 

Q.  What  position  would  you  have  the  minister  occupy  in  the 
Sunday-school  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  If  he  has  nobody  else  that  can  do 
it,  and  if  he  is  as  strong  as  Samson,  he  should  be  super- 
intendent. But,  as  a  general  rule,  young  gentlemen, 
if  you  can  do  so,  shift  upon  other  people  just  as  much 
work  as  you  can  ;  there  will  always  be  enough  left  for 
you.  Make  others  visit,  if  you  can ;  make  others  take 
care  of  the  Sunday-school,  if  you  can ;  make  them 
preside  in  meetings,  if  you  can ;  send  men  to  this, 
that,  and  the  other  station.  You  are  gaining  all  the 
time  by  drilling  them,  and  you  will  have  just  as  much 
as  you  can  do  yourself.  In  my  first  parish  I  was  super- 
intendent of  my  Sunday-school,  and  also  taught  a  class 
at  the  same  time,  so  that  I  served  from  the  very  bot- 
tom, and  went  up.  But  after  I  went  to  Indianapolis,  I 
had  men  that  could  do  it.  In  my  first  parish  I  had 
only  two  men,  —  no,  I  had  but  one,  and  I  did  not  want 
him.  I  had  to  be  superintendent,  or  else  there  would 
be  no  school.  In  respect  to  all  those  things,  do  the 
best  you  can.  If  you  can  get  somebody  that  will  do 
about  half-way,  with  you  as  his  auxiliary,  take  him. 
If  you  cannot  find  anybody,  do  it  yourself,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  work  besides.  You  will  notice  that  in  ny 
community  where  you  have  to  attend  to  so  many  of 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   SOCIAL   ELEMENTS.  173 

these  details,  there  is  not  so  much  intelligence  as  to 
make  very  strong  draughts  on  your  preaching  power. 
But  if  you  go  into  a  community  where  there  is  more 
culture,  and  knowledge  is  greater,  and  where  you  have 
constantly  to  rise  yourself,  you  must  intermit.  That 
man  is  the  best  preacher  and  organizer  of  a  church 
who  knows  how  to  make  the  most  men  do  the  most 
things. 

Q.  What  is  the  best  kind  of  pastoral  visitation  ? 

ME.  BEECHES.  —  All  kinds.  If  I  were  going  to  visit 
the  sick,  I  should  go  with  sympathy  and  gentleness, 
with  cheerfulness,  but  not  with  mirth.  If  I  were  going 
to  visit  a  family  in  the  ordinary  society  of  life,  I  should 
go  to  the  house  and  call  for  the  children ;  that  is  my 
choice,  always;  and  I  notice  that  where  I  have  the 
children,  I  have  the  old  folks  too.  But  then,  never  go 
in  any  formal,  set  way ;  go  naturally,  go  as  a  man,  go 
because  you  like  the  people. 

Q.   What  do  you  say  as  to  praying  in  families  ? 

ME.  BEECHEE.  —  I  should  never  thrust  prayer  upon 
a  family.  I  would  always  go  in  such  a  state  that,  if  it 
were  desirable,  I  should  be,  at  once,  ready  and  willing 
to  pray  with  them.  That  leads  me  to  another  point. 
When  I  came  to  Brooklyn,  all  the  young  folks  were  dis- 
posed to  avoid  me ;  that  is,  outside  of  the  church  and 
the  meetings.  They  thought  that  I  would  talk  minister 
to  them.  But  I  said  to  them  all  in  my  congregation, 
"  My  young  friends,  I  want  you  to  understand  that  I 
will  never  open  my  lips  to  you  on  the  subject  of  religion 
till  you  ask  me.  If  you  think  I  am  going  to  follow 
you  up,  you  mistake  me ;  I  shall  no  more  do  it  than  I 


174          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

would  insist,  if  I  were  a  physician,  upon  throwing  my 
pills  around  in  a  promiscuous  party,  and  asking  the 
guests  if  they  did  not  feel  bad,  and  if  they  would  not 
like  to  take  some.  There  is  a  fair  understanding  be- 
tween us.  You  may  meet  me  and  travel  with  me  all 
day,  and  I  won't  bother  you ;  but  whenever  you  want 
me,  and  will  give  me  the  least  hint,  you  will  find  me 
right  there,  ready  to  talk,  and  help,  and  do  everything  I 
can  for  you."  That  understanding  changed  our  relations 
at  once.  Thus  the  most  perfect  freedom  was  established 
between  us,  and  now,  if  they  want  anything,  they  come 
to  me  without  the  least  hesitation,  and  I  never  pursue 
them.  I  do  not  lay  down  this  as  a  rule  in  reference  to 
prayer,  because  there  are  some  men  who  have  an  art 
of  pursuing  people  which  is  blessed  of  God,  and  which 
is  natural  to  them.  There  are  some  persons  who  will 
go  into  a  family,  and  at  once  say,  "  The  Lord  be  with 
you ! "  and  everybody  feels  at  once  that  it  is  the  natu- 
ral thing  to  say.  I  could  no  more  do  it  than  I  could 
go  in  and  enunciate  a  proposition  out  of  Euclid,  —  and 
that  is  an  absolute  impossibility. 

.  Q.  In  regard  to  the  relation  of  the  Sabbath-school  to  the 
church,  a  matter  which  has  often  been  discussed  here,  should  the 
Sabbath  school  be  a  part  of  the  church,  or  should  it  be  a  separate 
organization  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  The  question  never  came  up  with 
us.  We  never  let  it  come  up.  As  far  as  possible, 
I  always  sought  to  let  the  Sunday-school  have  its 
own  autonomy.  I  have  avoided,  in  all  my  ministry, 
the  exercise  of  authority.  I  have  refused  author- 
ity in  order  that  I  might  have  influence,  which  is  a 
great  deal  better.  There  is  nothing  that  I  want  in  my 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  175 

parish  which,  if  they  find  it  out,  is  not  done  instantly ; 
but  I  avoid  letting  them  know  it  if  I  possibly  can. 
If  they  are  to  elect  a  superintendent,  unless  it  is  a 
critical  case,  I  refuse  to  do  anything  about  it.  I  say, 
"  You  are  competent ;  do  it  yourselves."  I  have  re- 
fused to  have  any  secret  councils  with  my  own  mem- 
bers. I  have  refused  to  lay  any  pipe  whatsoever  in 
respect  to  church  affairs.  I  say  to  them,  "  I  feel  that 
I  stand  four-square  here  among  you.  I  am  a  member 
in  the  church ;  I  am  not  a  dictator.  Because  I  am  a 
pastor,  I  am  not  a  master.  You  shall  not  make  me 
budge  an  inch  from  my  place,  nor  will  I  attempt  to 
make  you  budge  an  inch  from  your  place."  So  per- 
fectly amicable  relations  have  always  subsisted,  and  we 
have  never,  during  a  pastorate  of  nearly  twenty-six 
years,  during  the  stormiest  periods  that  any  nation 
ever  went  through,  amidst  questions  that  have  agitated 
the  community  so  that  it  was  red-hot,  —  there  has 
never  been  any  difficulty  in  my  church  that  I  have  had 
to  call  my  deacons  together  to  settle,  or  a  difficulty  of 
any  description  whatever. 
Q.  What  is  the  best  visitation  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  The  best  of  all  visitation  is  that 
which  is  casual  and  on  purpose,  —  that  which  is  ap- 
parently off-handed  in  the  freedom  of  casual  visita- 
tion, but  which  in  your  own  secret  mind  forms  a 
part  of  the  system  by  which  you  go  through  your  whole 
parish.  But,  young  gentlemen,  a  man  has  a  right  first 
to  the  visitation  of  the  family  where  his  own  soul  is 
fed.  You  have  a  right  to  your  own  society,  and  a 
minister  ought  to  be  jealous  of  that.  If  the  whole 
parish  are  jealous  because  you  visit  in  two  or  three 


176  LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

families  for  your  own  sake,  stand  your  ground.  You 
have  as  much  right  to  your  friendships  as  they  have  to 
theirs.  It  is  not  necessary  for  you  to  give  up  your 
manhood  in  order  to  please  them,  if  they  are  wrong. 

Then  there  should  be  visitation  amongst  those  that 
need  it  the  most.  Begin  at  the  bottom  and  go  up,  and, 
if  anybody  is  to  be  neglected,  let  it  be  the  rich  and 
those  that  are  intelligent.  In  other  words,  the  more 
highly  organized  families  are  able  to  get  along  with- 
out you,  except  so  far  as  friendship  is  concerned.  I 
know  dozens  of  families  in  my  parish,  —  yes,  I  may 
say  a  great  many  more,  —  in  which  the  average  intelli- 
gence and  the  average  spirituality  are  far  greater  than 
the  average  intelligence  and  spirituality  of  the  whole 
church,  —  families  that  are  churches  above  churches, 
as  it  were.  Now,  it  is  very  pleasant  for  you  to  go 
there  by  elective  affinities.  Yet  they  are  the  ones  to 
neglect,  if  anybody  is  to  be  neglected.  Take  care  of 
the  widow,  the  orphan,  the  unfriended.  If  a  man 
is  under  a  cloud,  go  to  him.  If  a  man  fails  in  business, 
and  the  tongues  of  all  men  are  against  him,  do  you  be 
right  by  his  side  and  say  to  him,  "  Now,  let  me  hold 
you  up  ;  I  don't  want  to  ask  any  questions  or  to  have 
you  say  anything,  but  here  I  am ;  by  and  by,  when 
you  want  me  to  say  or  to  do,  here  I  am."  Go  down  into 
the  deep  waters  with  people,  and  be  all  the  time  look- 
ing out  for  the  people  toward  whom  you  are  to  act  the 
part  of  the  chivalric  man.  Take  the  weak  side,  and 
keep  on  the  weak  side  all  the  time. 

Q.  Should  the  apparent  proximate  object  of  visitation  be  sim- 
ply to  cultivate  good  feeling  between  you  and  those  families,  or  to 
exert  a  direct  religious  influence  ? 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  SOCIAL  ELEMENTS.  177 

ME.  BEECHEK.  —  Both,  sir.  If,  in  the  community 
where  you  live,  you  are  among  a  flood  of  magazines  and 
newspapers,  and  the  intelligence  of  the  community  is 
as  great  or  perhaps  greater  than  yours,  it  would  be  like 
carrying  coals  to  Newcastle  to  go  into  a  family  and 
try  to  instruct  its  members.  But  you  might  go  into 
another  family,  where  they  did  not  know  the  news, 
and  then  it  would  be  a  mistake  if  you  did  not  im- 
part information  to  them.  But  adapt  yourself  with- 
out routine,  without  an  absolute,  stiff  rule,  to  the  exi- 
gency. When  a  man  goes  out  for  botany,  and  sees  a 
hollyhock,  and  puts  his  hand  up  and  picks  it,  and  sees 
another  flower  down  there,  and  stoops  down  and  picks 
it,  he  does  not  have  a  rule  to  pick  flowers  in  any  par- 
ticular way. 

Q.  "What  do  you  do  when  you  go  into  a  family,  and  the 
mother  is  desirous  to  show  off  the  excellences  of  her  daughter 
on  the  "  planner,"  as  she  calls  it,  and  is  full  of  pride  in  her  little 
ones,  —  what  do  you  do  ?  Are  n't  you  tried  sometimes  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  sir,  my  Master  carried  his 
people's  sins  and  their  burdens,  and  I  try  to  carry  my 
people's  too.  I  do  not  know  that  the  pianos  are  so 
trying  to  me  as  the  pictures  are.  But,  above  all  other 
things,  it  is  the  babies,  the  prodigies,  that  I  have  in  my 
parish !  I  do  not  know  that  you  ever  had  them,  but 
there  are  born  unto  us  children  that  are  immense,  won- 
derful !  These,  however,  are  little  infirmities  in  people. 
I  sometimes  think,  while  we  look  upon  them,  and  mark 
them,  and  amuse  ourselves  over  them,  that  we  have 
never  had  a  chance  to  look  into  the  note-book  of  the 
angels,  to  see  what  they  thought  of  us.  My  impression 
is  that,  if  we  could  get  the  notion  of  superior  beings 


178  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

as  to  the  thousand  things  that  they  see  in  us  grown 
folks,  we  should  find  that  we  are  more  childish  /in 
their  sight  than  children  are  in  ours.  At  any  rate, 
there  are  a  thousand  considerations  that  should  cause 
us  to  be  very  patient  and  to  put  the  best  face  on  those 
things ;  only  dorit  tell  lies.  Dr.  Humphrey  wras  told 
by  a  lady,  "  Doctor,  you  know  that  mothers  think  very 
much  of  their  babies,  but  I  have  one  that  I  think  is  a 
paragon."  "  I  don't  doubt  it,  ma'am,"  said  he.  "  I  have 
eight  just  such  at  home." 

Q.  Did  you  mean  to  have  us  understand,  in  some  of  your 
remarks  a  little  while  ago,  that  children  from  nine  to  twelve 
years  of  age  were  not  often  true  Christians,  worshiping  God  in 
spirit  and  in  truth  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Oh  !  far  from  that.  I  believe  that 
children  worship  God  at  four  and  five  years  of  age. 
I  believe  there  never  will  be  a  conversion  of  this 
world  until  the  cradles  are  the  sanctuaries.  We  have 
got  to  bring  children  up  in  the  "  nurture  and  admoni- 
tion of  the  Lord " ;  this  transplanting  of  old  trees  is 
better  than  nothing,  but  that  is  all  that  can  be  said 
of  it. 


VII. 


BIBLE  -  CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY 
WOKK. 

IONTINUING-  the  general  subject  of  the 
social  forces  of  the  church,  I  shall  to-day 
speak  especially  of  Bible-Classes,  of  Mis- 
sion Schools,  of  the  Lay  Element  in  the 
church,  and  of  Young  Men's  Associations,  —  all  of 
them  very  nearly  connected,  though  their  names  would 
seem  to  put  them  at  some  distance  apart. 

There  never  was  a  time,  I  think,  in  which  there  was 
so  much  direct  and  indirect  movement,  from  so  many 
sources,  against  the  sacred  books  which  we  call  the 
Bible,  as  there  is  to-day.  There  was  never  so  much 
effectually  said  against  them,  which  every  honest  man 
ought  to  hear.  And  yet  I  think  there  never  was 
a  time  when  the  Bible  in  its  main  objects  and  ends 
was  so  inexpugnable,  so  superior  to  criticism,  and  so 
manifestly  admirable,  as  to-day.  That  is  to  say,  while 
you  may  find  fault  with  the  time  element,  the  mere 
external  vehicle  by  which  truth  has  been  conveyed ; 
while  you  may  find  some  disagreements  of  dates,  or 
some  erroneous  historical  statements,  or  the  like,  —  yet, 


180          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

when  you  consider  the  end  which  the  Scriptures  have 
in  view,  namely,  the  formation  of  perfect  manhood  in 
Christ  Jesus,  science  has  not  touched  the  Scriptures, 
except  to  illustrate  and  to  fortify  them.  For  example, 
there  is  not  a  single  element  in  them  that  goes  to  con- 
stitute social  or  civil  morality,  that  has  been  set  aside 
either  by  any  experience  or  by  any  scientific  deduction. 
The  Book  of  Proverbs,  although  its  aim  is  comparatively 
not  high,  yet,  considered  as  a  resultant  of  observation 
and  experience  in  the  ethical  relations  of  society,  is 
just  as  applicable  to-day  as  in  the  hour  when  it  was 
issued.  If  there  has  been  any  effect  produced  by  the 
immense  revolutions  and  changes  which  have  gone  on 
in  the  world,  it  has  been  to  brighten  the  sentences,  and 
make  them  clearer. 

If  you  go  higher  than  mere  ethics,  you  cannot  find 
a  single  thing  that  Scripture  has  pronounced  evil,  that 
has  since  been  shown  to  be  good,  or  that  by  any  modi- 
fication could  be  made  good.  You  cannot  find  a  single 
virtue  that  is  admired  and  highly  extolled  in  Scrip- 
ture, that  has  been  shown  in  the  development  of  man 
and  in  the  process  of  scientific  investigation  to  be 
other  than  a  virtue.  You  cannot  find  that  the  scrip- 
tural ideal  of  Christian  character  has  been  in  any  part 
impaired.  It  never  stood  so  high  as  to-day.  Never 
was  there  a  need  more  apparent  (and,  I  think,  soon 
to  be  universally  felt),  of  the  contact  of  the  sou.1  of  man 
with  God's,  for  the  sake  of  developing  its  higher  and  re- 
straining its  lower  powers.  So  that  if  the  Word  of  God 
be  considered  simply  as  a  guide-book  to  manhood,  and 
through  manhood  to  immortality  and  blessedness,  it 
stands  unchanged  and  unshaken  to-day. 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.      181 

Now,  the  teaching  of  that  book  —  while  it  has,  per- 
haps, been  taught  too  narrowly  and  literally,  and  there 
is  room  for  improvement  in  our  methods  of  study  — 
was  never  more  important  in  the  training  of  the 
church,  in  the  cultivation  and  direction  of  its  resources, 
than  it  is  to-day. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  BIBLE-CLASSES. 

The  matter  of  Bible-classes  is  a  very  difficult  one  to 
manage.  But  the  outcome  is  so  admirable  that  every 
pastor  should  find  some  way  to  manage  them,  and  to 
make  them  a  working  part  in  the  life  of  the  church 
which  he  supervises.  We  are  not  to  allow  the  vast 
flood  of  literature,  the  immense  increase  and  populari- 
zation of  what  may  be  called  solid  learning,  especially 
the  exceedingly  interesting  and  growing  developments 
of  natural  science,  to  draw  away,  as  they  are  now 
tending  to  do,  the  minds  of  the  young.  Our  houses 
have  libraries  as  they  had  not  formerly,  and  our  young 
people  have  a  good  deal  more  to  read.  "When  as  a 
child  I  was,  for  any  reason,  shut  up  at  home  half  a  day 
on  Sunday,  I  was  not  allowed  to  read  "  Eobinson  Cru- 
soe." I  had  "  Little  Henry  and  his  Bearer,"  and  "  Pil- 
grim's Progress,"  and  some  of  Hannah  More's  works, 
as  well  as  a  few  moral  treatises,  which,  if  one  began 
to  read,  he  would  retreat  from  them  into  the  Bible, 
quick!  .These  were  about  the  whole  of  my  literature, 
and  the  Bible  was,  after  all,  the  most  interesting  book 
in  the  house. 

But  now  the  Sunday-school  library  has  opened  upon 
the  children  a  flood,  or  rather  a  swarm,  that  can  some- 
times be  compared  to  little  else  than  the  locusts,  the 


182          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

lice,  and  the  frogs  of  Egypt.  There  is,  I  think,  an 
immense  amount  of  wishy-washy  stuff,  wrought  to- 
gether with  a  certain  sort  of  fictitious  and  unwhole- 
some interest,  and  eagerly  taken  in  by  children.  The 
most  difficult  book  in  the  world  to  write,  is  a  book  for 
a  child ;  yet  it  is  upon  this  that  everybody  thinks  he 
can  begin  his  literary  career.  And  so  we  are  in  danger 
of  being  carried  away  by  what  may  be  called  the  "  swill 
of  the  house  of  God." 

STUDYING  THE  BIBLE  AS  A  WHOLE. 

For  all  these  reasons,  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  Bible, 
the  wide  discussion  going  on  about  it,  the  multiplicity 
of  literary  works  and  of  religious  works,  called  so  by 
courtesy,  —  for  all  these  reasons,  it  is  very  important 
that  in  every  church  there  should  be  great  attention 
paid  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  for  their  own  sake. 
Bible-classes  are  next  to  the  pulpit,  and  are  some- 
times even  far  more  educating  than  the  pulpit  itself. 
A  Bible-class,  if  properly  trained,  may  at  last  reach  al- 
most every  question  that  ever  enters  the  minister's  own 
study.  I  think  it  very  desirable  that  the  whole  struc- 
ture and  genius  of  the  Bible  should  be  studied,  aside 
from  its  essential  contents.  The  prevalent  infidelity 
and  doubt,  the  sneers  that  are  thrown  at  sacred  things, 
the  talk  that  men  hear  of  discords  in  the  Bible,  under- 
mine the  confidence  of  a  great  many  persons  unneces- 
sarily. I  know  of  but  one  remedy,  and  that  is  a  clear, 
bold  study  of  the  thing  itself.  If  there  were  a  man  in 
my  parish  who  was  an  acute  infidel,  I  would  secure  his 
presence  in  the  class,  if  I  had  nobody  else.  I  would 
'show  the  young  people  of  my  parish  either  that  the 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.      183 

difficulties  were  only  apparent,  and  were  solvable,  or 
else  that  they  so  inhere  in  the  infinite  nature  of  the 
subjects  discussed  as  to  belong  to  all  views  of  those 
subjects,  whether  religious  or  not.  At  any  rate,  I 
would  produce  the  impression  either  that  the  infidel 
objections  were  not  true,  or  that  the  trouble  lay  in  my 
own  ignorance  and  incapacity  to- answer.  But  to  leave 
the  impression  in  the  community  that  the  minister  has 
got  his  church  around  him,  and  is  cuddled  there,  and  that 
it  is  his  professional  interest  to  stand  up  for  his  book, 
and  that  his  book  is  susceptible  of  being  riddled  if  you 
could  only  get  fair  play  at  it,  —  if  you  allow  this,  you 
produce  latent  scepticism  throughout  your  congregation. 
Therefore,  have  courage,  and  allow  fair  discussion.  Let 
in  light,  let  in  air.  If  there  is  any  book  that  will  bear 
it,  it  is  the  Bible.  I  think,  therefore,  that  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  structure  of  the  Scriptures,  the  nature 
of  inspiration,  —  its  metes  and  bounds  and  varieties, 
and  the  inferences  deducible  from  it,  —  all  these  ques- 
tions, which  are  to-day  so  much  in  the  very  air,  you 
must  meet.  If  you  do  not  go  to  meet  them,  they  will 
come  and  take  you  captive. 

VARIOUS   METHODS   OF  BIBLE   STUDY. 

Consider  also  the  Scriptures  from  beginning  to  end, 
taking  them  as  a  matter  of  history  and  as  a  matter 
of  literature,  following  the  text  seriatim.  (I  am  speak- 
ing of  different  methods  in  Bible-classes,  of  which  some- 
times one,  sometimes  the  other,  is  to  be  taken.)  Or, 
instead  of  taking  the  Evangelists  in  course,  and  then 
some  of  the  letters  of  Paul  or  John,  men  might  take, 
in  the  course  of  the  Bible-classes,  such  topics  as  the 


184  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

great  questions  of  conscience;  the  questions  of  faith, 
courtesy,  hope,  love,  temper,  selfishness,  disinterest- 
edness, and  a  thousand  subjects  of  that  kind.  That 
is,  events  that  are  occurring  in  the  community,  the 
thousand  ethical  difficulties  or  incidents  that  come  up 
in  daily  life  in  the  community,  might  be  considered  in 
their  relation  to  the  Scriptures,  you  yourself  being  all 
the  time  the  guide  and  director ;  so  that,  in  one  way  or 
another,  you  will  have  pretty  much  the  whole  course 
of  life  brought  out  in  the  most  familiar  way  in  the 
Bible-class.  You  will  be  able,  in  tliis  way,  to  touch 
elements  that  no  man  can  reach  in  a  sermon. 

ADVANTAGE  OF  PERSONAL  TEACHING. 

When  I  was  in  Birmingham,  I  went  in  to  see  how 
they  manufactured  papier-mache,  and  I  saw  the  vast 
machinery  and  the  various  methods  by  which  it  was 
blocked  out  and  made.  I  watched  the  various  pro- 
cesses from  room  to  room,  until  I  came  to  the  last, 
where  is  given  the  finishing  touch,  the  final  polish. 
They  told  me  that  they  had  tried  everything  in  the 
world  for  polishing,  and  at  last  had  been  convinced 
that  there  was  nothing  like  the  human  hand.  There 
was  no  leather  or  other  substance  that  they  could  get 
hold  of,  that  had  such  power  to  polish  to  the  very 
finest  smoothness,  as  this  living  leather  in  its  vital 
state,  —  the  human  hand.  It  is  very  much  so  with 
people.  You  can  teach  them  from  the  pulpit  in  cer- 
tain large  ways,  but  there  are  some  things  that  you 
cannot  do  except  by  putting  your  very  hand  on  them 
and  working  them  down,  polishing  them  off  by  hand. 
In  the  Bible-class,  where  all  sorts  of  questions  and 


BIBLE  CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — L.VY  WOKK.      1§5 

thoughts  and  feelings  come  out,  and  where  various 
tastes  lead  to  all  sorts  of  matters,  you  can  put  your 
hand  out  and  bring  the  truth  into  all  crevices,  nooks, 
and  corners  of  human  thought  and  feeling  and  imagina- 
tion, as  you  cannot  do  in  a  sermon. 

Of  course,  it  will  require  on  your  part  no  small 
range  of  knowledge.  He  that  knows  the  Bible  well 
knows  pretty  much  all  the  world,  not  in  the  more 
modern  developments  and  disclosures,  but  in  ancient 
history,  ethnography,  geography;  in  a  thousand  questions 
of  manners  and  customs,  of  ethics,  of  equities,  of  gen- 
eral law  and  legislation.  All  these  come  into  the  illus- 
tration of  Scripture ;  and  a  minister  that  carries  on  a 
Bible-class, — a  live  one, — and  has  in  it  people  who  have 
heads,  and  are  not  afraid  to  speak,  will  find  that  he 
has  to  use  his  study  abundantly.  I  should  not  wonder 
if  you  found  that,  for  years,  in  the  beginning  of  your 
ministry,  the  Bible-class  taxed  you  with  more  study 
than  your  sermons.  But  it  is  worth  the  cost.  Your 
people  will  be  rooted  and  grounded  in  the  truth,  when 
that  truth  has  been  derived  from  the  direct  study  of 
the  Word  of  God.  Truth  will  have  to  them  a  vitality 
and  an  authority  which  it  cannot  have  when  it  comes 
from  you,  even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances. 

In  the  institution  and  conduct  of  the  Bible-class,  one 
of  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  after  the  listlessness 
and  general  indifference  have  passed  away,  will  be  a 
controversial  spirit,  which  will  often  rise  up,  especially 
when  you  have  persons  who  have  been  catecheti- 
cally  instructed.  Almost  invariably,  the  questions  put 
at  first  are  out-of-the-way  questions  of  mere  curiosity, 
and  of  no  value;  or  else  there  will  be  questions  of 


186  LECTUEES  OX  PREACHING. 

abstract  moral  government.  Men  will  want  to  go  at 
once  right  into  Decrees,  Foreordination,  Election,  Repro- 
bation, or  something  of  that  sort,  and  you  will  have  to 
guard  your  Bible-class  from  the  tendency  to  purely  intel- 
lectual debating.  For,  while  doctrinal  discussion  ought 
to  be  in  order,  and  it  is  worth  while  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  discussion  of  such  questions  by  them- 
selves, when  you  can  lay  out  the  subject,  and  invite 
questions,  and  be  prepared  to  go  into  the  whole  mat- 
ter, yet,  when  a  class  has  been  instituted  for  all  sorts 
of  people,  it  is  very  unwise  to  let  it  take  on  a  con- 
troversial habit.  Now,  there  is  a  difficulty  here.  I 
have  a  man  who  is  active,  self-sacrificing,  excellent,  and 
who  works  among  the  poor  all  the  time ;  but  his  ideas 
are  very  curious,  and  he  is  incisive  in  his  thought,  and 
at  every  teachers'  meeting  he  wants  to  put  questions 
on  passages  of  Scripture  and  carry  the  meeting  off  into 
philosophical  discussion.  Now,  the  object  of  the  head 
of  the  school  is  to  prepare  his  teachers  to  edify  their 
scholars,  and  he  does. not  wish  to  invite  doctrinal  dis- 
quisition, or  to  become  an  antagonist ;  and  yet,  to  stop 
that  man's  mouth  looks  very  much  as  if  he  were  afraid 
to  defend  his  own  ground,  or  as  if  he  did  not  want  free 
discussion.  It  will  require  a  good  deal  of  wisdom  and 
tact  and  management  to  go  right.  One  way  to  meet 
the  case  is  to  come  to  a  fair  understanding  with  the 
person,  by  personal  conversation  with  him.  There  are 
a  great  many  men  that  will  help  you,  if  you  confide 
in  them ;  but  if  you  do  not,  they  will  hinder  you.  If 
there  were  half  a  dozen  of  this  kind,  I  should  call  them 
together  in  my  study,  and  say  to  them :  "  Now,  gentle- 
men, you  are  acute,  I  see ;  your  minds  are  active,  and 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS  — LAY  WORK.       187 

you  have  a  great  deal  of  curiosity  on  this  or  that  sub- 
ject. I  want  to  do  so  and  so  with  my  Bible-class. 
This  is  my  plan,  and  I  want  your  help.  I  will  agree, 
as  far  as  in  me  lies,  to  meet  your  desires.  I  will  have 
other  meetings,  which  shall  be  especially  for  discussion, 
and  you  shall  have  free  range ;  but  in  these  others  I 
want  you  to  help,  and  not  hinder  me."  Thus  I  throw 
myself  on  their  confidence  and  honor.  Most  men  that 
would  come  to  a  Bible-class  at  all  would  respond  to 
such  an  appeal  as  that,  and  would  help  you.  But 
don't  set  up  your  authority.  Don't  use  your  spiritual 
bludgeon.  Don't  say  to  a  man,  "  Sit  down,  sir  ! "  Don't 
ridicule  a  man,  or  shut  up  his  mouth  by  authority, 
because  you  are  a  minister.  It  is  the  worst  possible 
policy.  No  policy  will  surely  keep  you  out  of  difficul- 
ties, young  gentlemen.  I  don't  care  how  much  you 
know  beforehand  of  management,  you  have  all  of  you 
got  to  carry  burdens  ;  you  have  got  to  learn  a  good  deal 
by  failures,  stumbling,  and  falling  into  pit-holes.  I  only 
give  you  a  few  hints  and  suggestions  as  to  these  things, 
leaving  you  to  use  your  good  sense  in  extricating  your- 
selves from  the  difficulties  which  you  will  find  in  carry- 
ing on  a  successful  Bible-class. 

Now,  allow  me  to  say,  I  have  found  in  my  ministry 
much  benefit  from  the  Bible-class,  —  more  benefit,  in 
many  respects,  than  from  anything  else.  In  my  own 
early  ministry,  instead  of  having  a  Bible-class,  —  for  I 
had  not  good  material  to  work  into  one,  —  I  lectured 
on  the  Bible.  I  took  up  the  Scriptures  seriatim.  The 
whole  of  the  New  Testament  I  went  through  by  lec- 
tures. I  think  I  have  now,  somewhere  on  my  shelves 
at  home,  the  lectures  I  prepared  thkty  years  ago,  in 


188          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

which  I  went  over  pretty  much  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament,  chapter  by  chapter,  verse  by  verse.  I  asked 
for  questions,  sometimes  provoked  questions,  but  mainly 
I  expounded  the  Scriptures  myself.  Circumstances 
were  such,  in  my  early  ministry,  as  to  make  this  course 
desirable.  During  my  settlement  in  Brooklyn,  I  have 
had  so  much  preaching  to  do,  and  have  had  so  many 
helpers  raised  up  around  me,  that  I  have  been  able  to 
put  this  work  upon  others ;  and  the  Bible-classes,  which 
have  been  a  constituent  part  of  our  school  system,  have 
been  more  blessed  than  almost  any  other  part  of  the 
labor  in  our  church.  We  have  three  Sunday-schools,  — 
the  Home  School,  the  Bethel,  and  the  Plymouth  Mis- 
sion. In  the  Home  School,  we  have  about  eight  or 
nine  hundred  children,  and  from  a  hundred  and  fifty  to 
two  hundred  young  men  over  fifteen  years  of  age.  In 
the  Bethel  we  have  about  one  thousand  scholars,  and 
in  the  Bible-class  about  two  hundred  married  men ;  also 
a  class  of  married  women,  of  about  one  hundred  or  one 
hundred  and  fifty.  In  the  Plymouth  Mission,  there  are 
four  or  five  hundred  scholars,  and  nearly  one  hundred 
in  the  Bible-classes.  The  admissions  to  the  church- 
membership  have  ranged  from  a  hundred  to  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  or  three  hundred ;  and  probably  from 
one  third  to  one  half  of  them  have  been  by  conversions 
from  the  world ;  and  I  may  say  four  fifths  of  them  have 
come  through  the  Sunday-schools  and  the  Bible-classes. 
So  that  the  body  of  the  members  who  have  been 
brought  in  have  been  trained,  and  brought  to  a  per- 
sonal avowal  of  a  religious  faith  and  an  entrance  upon 
a  religious  life,  by  the  influence  of  the  Bible-class. 
This  Bible-class  of  married  men  is  a  phenomenon. 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WOEK.       189 

The  gentleman  who  teaches  it  was  a  soldier,  who  lost 
his  arm  in  the  service.  He  is  singularly  well  fitted  for 
this  work.  He  had  a  large  number  of  poor,  plain,  but 
excellent  men;  but  they  were  not  all  such.  He  has 
gathered  up  from  the  street  the  degraded,  the  literally 
lost.  At  first  his  class  was  small,  —  nine  or  ten  ;  but  he 
worked  with  them  faithfully,  and  set  them  to  gathering 
up  their  abandoned  companions.  Among  those  brought 
in  were  drunkards,  pimps,  the  most  degraded  and  de- 
spicable. There  were  men  that  by  their  careless  habits 
had  wasted  their  earnings  and  disbanded  their  families. 
Some  of  them  were  living  in  filth  and  vice,  and  some  in 
crime.  And  yet,  last  January,  about  a  hundred  of  these 
men  came  up  in  a  body  and  called  upon  me,  and  a  better 
looking  set  of  men  I  never  beheld.  They  were  clothed 
and  in  their  right  mind.  "We  received  at  one  time  some 
forty  into  the  church,  out  of  this  body  of  men;  and  one 
of  the  most  affecting  things  I  know  of  is  that  this  class, 
two  or  three  times  a  year,  gives  an  entertainment  to 
all  the  parents  of  the  children  in  the  Bethel  Mission. 
They  give  it  themselves.  We  furnish  the  room  and 
lights,  but  they  order  a  supper,  with  cake,  confections, 
ice-cream,  tea,  and  coffee.  They  have  music,  and  also 
some  little  amusement  —  tableaux,  or  something  of  the 
kind  —  got  up  for  them.  They  invite  all  the  fathers 
and  mothers  of  the  children  in  the  Bethel  Mission. 
Each  of  the  members  of  the  Bible-class  wears  his  little 
rosette  to  show  he  is  a  manager,  and  each  one  is  ex- 
pected to  be  on  the  floor  to  entertain  the  guests  and  to 
see  that  every  one  is  happy,  comfortable,  talked  to,  and 
fed.  To  see  these  hundred  and  fifty  men,  —  one  of 
whom  said,  in  relating  his  experience,  "I  know  all 


190          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

about  rum.  I  have  made  it,  I  have  sold  it,  and  I 
have  drunk  it  to  the  very  uttermost,"  —  to  see  such 
men  in  the  house  of  God,  entertainers,  calling  in  the 
parents  of  the  poor  wandering  children,  is  enough  to 
make  tears  come  from  anybody's  eyes. 

I  don't  believe  you  ever  could  have  reached  those 
men  except  by  taking  the  Word  of  God  in  your  hand, 
calling  them  together  in  a  place  where  they  felt  at 
home,  and  then  going  step  by  step  with  them  through  the 
truth,  teaching  them  Sunday  after  Sunday ;  and,  while 
you  are  doing  this,  calling  out  their  sympathies,  making 
them  work  for  each  other,  —  for  that  is  what  this  class 
is  still  doing,  —  one  here  and  one  there,  raising  contri- 
butions by  which  they  are  able  to  sustain  men  and  get 
them  on  their  feet  till  they  can  get  work  again.  There 
have  been  literally  hundreds  of  families  regathered. 

I  have  one  teacher  in  my  Home  School,  —  I  should 
be  within  bounds  if  I  should  say  that  in  ten  years  he 
has  been  the  instrument  of  converting  one  hundred  and 
fifty  young  men,  and  chiefly  by  the  application  of  the 
truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  in  the  Bible-class ;  and  I  have 
found  that,  while  our  Sunday-schools  are  greatly  blessed, 
there  has  been  no  other  agency  employed  in  our  church 
that  is  comparable  to  our  Bible-classes  for  adults,  young 
men  and  old. 

CAUSE  OF  THE  PROSPERITY  OF  PLYMOUTH  CHURCH. 

The  history  of  Plymouth  Church,  as  viewed,  would 
seem  to  be  a  history  of  excitement  and  curiosity.  The 
reason  of  the  prosperity  of  that  church  has  been  simply 
the  abundant,  continuous,  faithful,  humble  working  of 
the  members  of  the  church,  year  after  year.  There  is 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WOKK.       191 

an  immense  amount  of  life  among  the  members.  They 
are  seeking  to  follow  Christ  in  a  humble,  working 
spirit,  and  that  has  made  the  history  of  the  church. 

MISSION  SCHOOLS. 

A  few  words  on  the  subject  of  mission  schools. 
These  are  highly  desirable  in  large  cities,  where  so 
many  of  the  neighborhoods  are  neglected,  and  are  not 
able  to  support  a  church.  Such  neighborhoods  can  be 
better  reached  under  the  Methodist  system  than  under 
our  own,  unless  we  employ  some  such  auxiliaries  as 
mission  schools.  I  regard  mission  schools  as  the  tenders 
of  the  fleet.  Our  churches  are  men-of-war ;  our  mission 
schools  are  little  steam-yachts  that  these  men-of-war 
send  out  into  the  shallower  waters,  or  where  they  can- 
not go.  Every  city  church  ought  to  have  one  or  two 
chickens  of  this  kind  under  its  wing. 

WHERE  TO   ESTABLISH  MISSIONS. 

There  are,  in  the  establishment  of  these  mission 
schools,  two  or  three  principles  that  I  think  should  be 
borne  in  mind  as  the  foundations  of  all  success.  First, 
a  mission  school  ought  not,  in  my  judgment,  to  be 
placed  in  a  slum.  If  you  are  going  into  neighborhoods 
where  there  is  degradation  and  vice,  and  all  manner  of 
nastiness  and  rottenness,  it  is  not  best  to  preach  the 
gospel  there  permanently.  Go  in  to  them,  and  visit 
them ;  but  if  you  are  to  establish  an  institution,  draw 
people  out  of  the  midst  of  that  miry  pit  on  to  the  edge 
of  virtue  and  neatness  and  order.  It  will  be  easier  to 
draw  people  out  of  disorder  up  to  the  borders  of  order, 
than  to  teach  them  in  the  midst  of  their  disorder. 


192          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

There  is  something  in  going  out  of  their  ill-ventilated 
houses,  their  unlighted,  dirty  streets,  up  to  a  place 
which  is  quiet,  which  has  some  element  of  beauty 
about  it.  It  becomes  attractive  to  them,  and  they  will 
like  to  do  it,  provided  they  think  the  place  is  still  within 
easy  reach,  and  is  their  own. 

THE  SCHOOL  NOT  TO  BECOME  A  CHURCH. 

Next,  I  affirm  that  a  mission  school,  as  a  general 
thing,  should  remain  a  mission  school.  I  refuse  utterly 
to  allow  any  of  our  schools  to  be  nascent  churches. 
Not  that  it  may  not  be  a  good  way  to  send  out  a  school, 
and  thus  prepare  the  way  for  a  church.  There  are 
many  cases  in  which  that  is  a  proper  thing  to  do.  But 
ordinarily,  in  outlying  neglected  neighborhoods,  mission 
schools  are  better  for  the  people  than  churches  ;  for  this 
reason,  that  they  really  are  churches  in  the  primitive 
sense  of  the  term,  and  that  the  mode  of  instruction 
obtaining  there  is  better  adapted  to  the  wants  of  that 
class  of  people  than  is  the  instruction  which  they 
would  be  likely  to  get  in  a  church  of  the  ordinary  pat- 
tern. Our  churches  tend  to  extinguish  sociality.  Their 
congregations  are  respectable.  They  rise  high  in  many 
elements ;  but  the  low,  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the 
vicious,  are  not  susceptible  yet  of  these  higher  things. 
Where  they  are  brought  into  our  churches,  they  are 
lonesome,  they  are  little  interested,  and  are  very  soon 
left  behind.  But  if  you  send  intelligent  men  and 
women  down  into  their  midst  to  put  them  into  classes, 
and  then  to  do  the  work  face  to  face,  looking  to  the  in- 
dividual man,  calling  him  by  name,  going  over  to  where 
you  can  lay  your  hand  on  him,  you  are  rubbing  in 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.       193 

the  truth  in  a  manner  that  just  suits  his  unsusceptible 
nature.  You  are  giving  to  each  man  as  he  needs,  not 
comprehensively  as  a  whole  congregation  needs. 

BENEFIT  TO   TEACHERS. 

There  is  another  reason.  I  regard  these  mission 
schools  as  the  nurseries  for  training  the  teachers  them- 
selves. All  the  good  we  have  done  to  the  poor  and 
ignorant  in  Brooklyn  is  not  comparable  with  that  which 
has  been  done  to  my  own  people  in  the  process.  It 
would  be  enough,  if  only  this  one  thing  had  fallen  out, 
that  the  young  men  and  women  in  my  parish  had  been 
for  years  and  years  giving  some  of  their  best  time,  their 
best  thoughts,  their  freshest  hours,  their  sweetest  en- 
thusiasm, their  most  disinterested  charities.  They  have 
gone  down  into  the  field  and  made  the  work  of  taking 
care  of  these  men  their  own  work.  There  are,  and  have 
been,  many  children  of  wealth  and  culture  engaged  in 
this  mission  work,  who  give  up  to  it  not  only  hours  in 
each  single  day,  meeting  in  council,  —  meeting  in  little 
evening  parties  that  have  been  arranged  for  this  pur- 
pose, —  but  pretty  nearly  the  whole  of  their  Sunday, 
except  the  hour  of  our  morning  service ;  and  who 
carry  this  on  for  five  or  ten  years,  —  fascinated  with  it, 
I  might  say.  Now,  this  building  up  of  these  persons 
makes  them  worth  a  hundred  times  as  much  to  society 
and  to  the  church  as  they  would  be,  had  they  merely 
been  recipients,  going  with  open  mouth,  always  eating, 
and  never  using  the  strength  which  came  from  digested 
food.  These  missions  at  home  keep  alive  the  disinter- 
estedness of  men  to  such  a  degree  that  I  have  come 
near  to  think  that  the  church  which  has  no  mission 

9  M 


194          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

feeling  in  it,  no  impetus  to  go  outside  of  itself,  no 
thought  of  anything  except  how  to  take  care  of  itself, 
is  scarcely  a  Christian  church.  I  do  not  think  that 
vital  piety  is  long  to  be  sustained  in  any  body  of  men 
gathered  together  for  church  services,  where  there  is  no 
mission  spirit,  —  that  is,  a  spirit  of  disinterested  labor 
for  those  who  cannot  repay  you. 

CHURCH   SELFISHNESS. 

Our  mission  schools  have  also  accomplished  another 
thing  for  which  I  am  very  grateful.  I  am  ashamed  to 
see  great  churches,  whose  wealth  is  counted  by  millions, 
build  themselves  stately  houses,  give  to  them  everything 
that  can  make  them  comfortable  in  the  pew,  attractive 
in  the  choir,  eloquent  and  desirable  in  the  pulpit,  and 
when  they  have  done,  pay  their  minister  and  all  the 
expenses  liberally,  and  then  sit  themselves  down  and 
fold  around  themselves  the  robe  of  complacency,  saying, 
"  There,  if  the  Lord  don't  think  we  have  done  well,  he 
is  unreasonable."  What  have  they  done  but  for  them- 
selves ?  They  have  embellished  the  chariot  which 
is  carrying  them  to  heaven,  as  they  think,  —  though 
sometimes  that  is  a  mistake.  They  have  simply  made 
provision  for  their  own  religious  enjoyment. 

Churches  gather  together  families,  and  take  care  of 
them.  They  are  institutions  for  families.  They  forget 
all  outside  of  their  own  walls ;  they  forget  the  com- 
munity in  which  they  are,  which  is  under  their  care. 
If  some  few  of  their  members  are  stirred  up  to  open  a 
mission  school  in  a  destitute  neighborhood,  what  usually 
happens  ?  With  very  little  interest  on  the  part  of  the 
majority  of  the  church,  a  few  disinterested  persons  go 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS  —  LAY  WORK.       195 

down  among  the  poor,  and  hire  a  hall.  They  have  to 
pay  almost  all  of  the  rent  out  of  their  own  pockets. 
They  have  a  dilapidated  hall,  neither  carpeted  nor 
decorated,  gaunt  and  drear ;  and  they  gather  together 
there  a  few  on  Sundays,  teaching  them  the  best  way 
they  can.  And  this  is  the  offering  of  that  church  to  the 
poor !  That  starveling  band  of  teachers,  in  a  little 
miserable,  wretched,  out-of-the-way  place,  —  that  is 
what  they  give !  They  themselves  sumptuously  fed, 
living  in  a  gospel  palace,  having  nothing  neglected 
which  their  hearts  or  tastes  could  wish ;  yet,  when  they 
come  to  the  poor,  they  take  the  scraps  and  moldy  rinds 
to  give  to  them. 

Now,  I  hold  that  every  church  which  wants  to  do 
good  should  give,  not  what  it  has  left  over,  or  what 
it  stingily  thinks  it  can  spare,  to  the  poor.  That  which 
you  give  to  the  poor  ought  to  represent  that  which 
God  has  done  for  you ;  it  ought  to  represent  the  fresh- 
ness, beauty,  art,  and  sweetness  which  prevail  in  the 
household  of  the  givers. 

When,  therefore,  we  wanted  to  build  our  Bethel, 
when  application  was  made  to  us,  as  a  church,  to 
take  the  school  off  the  hands  of  those  who  had  been 
carrying  it,  I  gathered  the  people  together,  and  said  to 
them,  "  It  is  to  be  determined  to-night  by  vote  whether 
you  shall  take  this  school  and  care  for  it ;  but  if  you  do, 
I  want  you  to  understand  what  you  must  do.  I  will 
not  consent  to  the  taking  of  this  school  as  a  poor,  lame 
poverty  school.  You  must  build  for  them  better  quar- 
ters than  you  have  for  yourselves,  and  must  treat  that 
school  so  that  they  shall  have,  in  the  very  offerings  you 
bring  to  them,  some  sense  of  the  richness  which  Chris- 


196          LECTUKES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

tianity  has  brought  to  you."  They  assented  to  it. 
Now,  our  own  church  is  not  to  be  compared  for  beauty 
and  embellishment  with  the  Bethel.  That  building, 
with  the  ground,  cost  us  some  eighty  thousand  dollars. 
The  free  reading-room  is  filled  with  pleasant  pictures. 
In  the  appropriate  rooms,  we  have  all  the  elements  of 
housekeeping  that  are  necessary.  The  teachers  once  a 
month  have  their  tea  there  together.  Every  quarter 
the  schools  have  a  festival  there.  It  is  a  complete  little 
household,  in  all  its  appointments.  Every  part  of  it  is 
fine  in  taste,  ample  and  excellent  in  the  quality  and 
quantity  of  the  things  provided.  We  spare  nothing  for 
them.  We  have  given  them  as  good  an  organ  as  Mr. 
Hook  can  build.  We  spend  five  thousand  dollars  a 
year  for  the  expense  of  running  that  school.  It  is  en- 
tirely a  free-will  offering.  Whatever  they  contribute 
goes  to  mission  work.  In  so  far  as  the  school  is  con- 
cerned, we  have  made  it  no  second-class  car,  while  we 
are  riding  to  heaven  in  the  first-class.  We  have  given 
them  the  first,  and  take  our  chances  in  the  second. 

Now,  where  you  organize  disinterestedly  in  this  way, 
and  give  the  gospel,  not  in  its  lean,  meager  development, 
in  its  poverty  and  wretchedness  ;  where  you  give  the 
gospel  in  its  inflorescence,  in  that  state  in  which  it  has 
had  time  to  root  and  grow  and  blossom ;  where  you 
embody  the  gospel  in  all  its  brightness  and  beauty,  as 
the  source  of  all  that  is  joyous  in  your  own  house,  —  take 
that  down  to  them ;  send  with  it  your  best  children, 
your  ripest  and  sweetest,  your  most  disinterested.  Let 
these  make  themselves  at  home  with  the  poor,  and  be 
to  them,  week  by  week,  their  counsellors  and  advisers. 

Come  in  with  me,  on  Friday  afternoon,  which  is  the 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WOKK.       197 

afternoon  for  prayer  among  the  women,  and  for  the  tell- 
ing of  their  wants.  It  is  enough  to  melt  a  heart  of 
stone.  That  little  saintly  woman  who  presides  there, 
whose  name  I  will  not  mention,  is  to  them,  as  it  were, 
what  the  Virgin  Mary  is  to  the  more  devout  and  intelli- 
gent Catholics.  Her  ears  are  open  to  all  their  troubles. 
If  one  has  a  sick  child  or  a  sick  husband,  if  one  has 
had  a  death  in  a  family,  if  a  husband  has  been  abusive, 
if  there  is  discouragement,  if  the  boys  have  turned  out 
badly,  —  whatever  their  troubles,  it  is  their  privilege  to 
come  there,  Friday  afternoon,  and  make  known  all  their 
wants.  This  woman  sympathizes  with  them,  counsels 
them,  looks  after  them,  comforts  them.  And  this  work 
is  going  on  all  the  time,  from  year's  end  to  year's  end. 
There  is  no  vacation  in  that  school.  Our  Home  School 
has  a  vacation,  because  our  scholars  are  all  children  of 
prosperous  parents ;  but  poverty  knows  no  vacation. 
The  grief  and  sorrow  that  come  in  the  lower  walks  of 
life  know  no  intermission.  We  always  keep  open  this 
house  of  refuge,  to  which  all  the  poor  and  the  needy  come. 
I  tell  you,  it  keeps  the  hearts  of  my  people  very  soft 
and  sweet.  There  is  a  revival  feeling  in  the  church  all 
the  time,  coming  very  largely  from  the  effects  of  our 
mission  work. 

I  have  said  that  the  best  thing  in  our  church  was  the 
Bible-class.  Well,  the  best  tiling  in  our  church  is  the 
Mission  class  !  Whichever  one  you  think  of  last  is  the 
best. 

LAY  PEE  ACHING. 

This  leads  me  to  speak  of  the  lay  element  in  churches. 
I  have  already  somewhat  anticipated  that  subject.  I 


198          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

am  satisfied,  gentlemen,  that  you  are  never  going  to 
have  professional  ministers  enough  to  convert  the  world, 
—  never.  You  have  got  to  have  the  whole  church 
preach,  or  you  will  never  cover  the  ground.  The  popu- 
lation increases  a  great  deal  faster  than  ministers  do, 
especially  in  the  outlying  territories.  Just  think  of  the 
idea  of  attempting  to  closely  follow  up  that  rush  of  emi- 
gration, and  the  opening  of  those  vast  intermediary  and 
far-away  States  and.  Territories,  with  schools  and 
churches  and  professional  ministers.  You  never  can 
do  it.  In  this  intelligent  age  of  the  world,  I  do  not 
understand  why  a  layman  has  not  just  as  much  right 
to  be  a  public  teacher  as  a  minister  has.  He  knows 
as  much ;  he  averages  as  well.  He  does  not  undertake 
to  conduct  an  organization  in  all  its  details,  and  to  be  a 
leader  ;  but,  in  his  sphere,  he  is  prepared  to  preach  the 
gospel.  There  are  many  men  in  the  law,  in  medicine, 
in  mercantile  business,  many  teachers  in  schools,  many 
men  retired  from  active  business  life,  who  are  compe- 
tent to  take  this,  that,  or  the  other  neighborhood,  and 
maintain  service  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath.  Able  lec- 
turers they  are  upon  education ;  able  lecturers  they 
may  be  upon  temperance ;  and  they  may  just  as  well 
preach  also  sermons  that  have  in  them  the  root  of  the 
gospel.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was  feared  that  they 
might  err  from  ignorance.  But  we  have  learned  to  trust 
men.  At  least,  the  democratic  idea  has  been  introduced 
into  the  church ;  and  we  have  learned  to  have  great 
trust  and  confidence  in  men.  It  is  said  that  laymen  by 
their  rash  speaking  endanger  the  truth.  As  though 
there  never  was  any  rash  speaking  among  ministers, 
and  never  any  endangering  of  the  truth  among  them  ! 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.       199 

It  is  said  that  they  will  run  wide  of  common-sense.  As 
if  all  ministers  were  always  in  the  line  of  common- 
sense  !  "  Oh  but/'  it  is  said,  "  ministers  are  rectified ; 
the  class  spirit  brings  them  up,  and  they  are  watched 
over."  Just  as  though  public  sentiment  would  not 
bring  the  others  up,  and  as  though  they  could  not  be 
rectified  !  The  very  work  that  a  man  is  engaged  in  has 
the  element  of  rectification  in  it.  Let  men  not  be  per- 
secuted, let  them  not  be  questioned,  let  them  not  be 
nettled  and  irritated ;  for  getting  mad,  if  not  the  father,  • 
is  the  grandfather,  of  all  the  heresy  in  the  world  !  Men 
think  differently  from  you,  and  then  you  hit  them,  and 
then  they  say,  "  Now  I  will  stand  to  it."  And  they 
fight  for  their  opinion ;  so  that  the  anger  that  is  excited 
by  opposition  is  the  cause  of  the  permanency  of  many 
and  many  an  aberration  that  has  taken  place  in  the 
church.  If  you  had  let  men  alone,  if  you  had  left  them 
at  liberty,  they  would  have  exhaled  much  that  was  ob- 
noxious ;  it  would  have  cured  itself.  Men  need  the 
work ;  the  field  needs  them.  They  are  not  only  to  be 
trusted,  but  I  think  that,  being  trusted,  they  will 
average  as  well  as  the  great  multitude  of  ministers  in 
the  kind  of  work  to  which  they  turn  their  hand. 

WORK  IN  ONE'S  OWN  FIELD. 

That  is  not  all.  I  think  we  must  have  more  work 
from  laymen  in  their  own  business  and  in  their  own 
professions.  A  banking-house  is  the  banker's  parish ; 
the  landlord  has  his  parish  in  his  hotel ;  the  judge  has 
his  parish  in  the  bar,  and  among  the  people  that  are 
before  the  bar  and  behind  it.  Wherever  men  are,  there 
is  their  sphere  of  work.  I  knew  a  man  who  was  en- 


200          LECTURES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

gaged  in  business  in  "Wall  Street.  Certain  transactions 
on  the  part  of  certain  young  men  of  character  and 
family  came  before  him.  He  drew  them  aside  and 
talked  to  them.  He  talked  to  them  as  a  Christian 
man  and  as  a  father  should.  The  effect  on  them  was 
overwhelming.  It  was  the  cause,  apparently,  of  an 
entirely  different  style  of  manhood  in  -  them  from  that 
upon  which  they  had  been  entering.  If  I  had  said 
those  things  to  them,  they  would  have  said, "  Oh,  of 
course ;  he  says  so  because  that  is  his  business ;  we  ex- 
pect that  from  a  minister ;  but  he  don't  understand 
much  about  business."  But  here  was  an  old  business 
man,  universally  looked  up  to  in  the  street ;  and  when 
he  talked  godliness  to  those  young  men,  it  meant  some- 
thing. If  I  were  to  see  a  young  buck  spend  his  nights 
in  dissipation,  drinking,  and  all  manner  of  license,  and 
should  go  and  talk  to  him,  he  would  say,  "  I  thank  you ; 
you  mean  well,  no  doubt,  Mr.  Beecher."  And  he 
would  say,  after  I  had  gone  away,  "  The  minister  has 
been  to  talk  to  me,  and  he  was  a  good  old  fellow  " ; 
and  he  might  be  very  grateful.  But  suppose  a  man  of 
the  world  who  had  gone  through  much,  a  man  of  so- 
ciety, not  altogether  clear  himself,  —  suppose  he  should 
take  that  young  man,  and  say,  "  Now,  Thomas,  let  me 
just  tell  you  something;  it  won't  do,  it  won't  do!" 
Let  him  talk,  and  it  will  make  a  hundred  times  greater 
impression,  especially  if  he  is  known  to  have  had  some 
experience  in  these  evil  courses,  but  has  come  out  of 
them  and  cleansed  himself,  and  stands  high  in  truth 
and  honor.  When  I  went  yesterday  from  the  lecture, 
a  man  met  me  and  asked  me,  "  You  know  Mr.  So-and- 
so  ? "  "  Yes,"  —  he  was  the  landlord  of  a  hotel.  Said 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.       201 

this  person,  "  That  man  led  me  to  Christ."  "  How  was 
that  ? "  "  Well,  said  he,  "  he  took  me  and  talked  to 
me."  I  inquired  of  the  landlord  afterwards,  and  he 
said  it  was  so.  He  saw  that  the  other  was  living  very 
wickedly,  and  he  talked  to  him,  and  told  him  he  was 
going  to  the  bad.  The  man  looked  up  in  his  face  in 
utter  amazement,  and  said,  "  You,  a  landlord,  talk  to 
me  so  ? "  "  Yes,"  said  the  landlord,  "  I  do  talk  to  you 
so."  It  made  an  impression  upon  his  mind  that  no 
minister  ever  could  have  made. 

Now,  I  hold  that  there  are  some  things  which  can  be 
said  by  each  man  in  his  own  field,  and  by  nobody 
else  than  the  man  in  that  place,  and  that  our  lay 
force  ought  to  be  developed  in  the  church  and  out  of 
the  church,  so  as  to  supplement  and  carry  out  the 
preaching  of  the  pulpit.  That  pastorate  which  does 
not  make  the  most  of  all  the  laymen  and  laywomen  in 
the  church  and  in  the  congregation  is  imperfect  by  just 
so  much.  Many  of  you,  perhaps  most  of  you,  will 
disagree  with  me  in  the  matter  of  woman's  preaching, 
but  you  have  got  to  come  to  it ;  and  I  only  throw  it  out 
incidentally  now,  not  to  argue  it,  but  merely  to  say  that 
coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before ;  and  when  the 
time  comes,  and  you  see  that  it  is  the  proper  thing  to 
do,  you  will  remember  I  told  you  you  would  have  to 
come  to  it. 

YOUNG   MEN'S   CHRISTIAN   ASSOCIATIONS. 

One  word  as  to  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 
I  think,  in  large  cities,  there  is  a  sphere  for  them.  In 
country  places,  I  don't  see  what  they  are  but  men's 
churches.  I  think  that  the  young  men  and  young 

9* 


202  LECTURES  ON  PREACUIXG. 

women  of  the  church  should  form  young  people's  asso- 
ciations in  the  church.  To  form  them  with  separate 
organizations,  with  elaborate  buildings  and  large  ma- 
chinery, may  be  wise  in  large  cities,  but  in  country 
towns  no  reason  for  it  exists.  As  a  universal  system, 
therefore,  extending  all  over  the  laud,  I  doubt  if  there 
is  a  necessity  for  it ;  I  doubt  the  wisdom  and  expedi- 
ency of  it.  But,  as  a  special  organization  in  our  large 
cities,  I  think  it  is  eminently  wise.  But  what  ought 
these  associations  to  do  ?  What  is  their  business  ?  If 
it  be  preaching  to  the  young  men,  if  it  be  conducting 
prayer-meetings,  —  why,  the  church  does  that,  and  it 
had  better  be  done  in  the  churches.  If  it  be  merely 
getting  together  classes  and  giving  them  free  instruc- 
tion in  Italian,  Spanish,  French,  mathematics,  mechan- 
ics, —  why,  we  have  multitudes  of  institutions  that 
are  doing  that.  Why  need  there  be  a  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  to  duplicate  that  work.  If,  how- 
ever, there  is  a  work  set  on  foot  for  mutual  guardian- 
ship and  protection,  and  mutual  combined  effort  to 
procure  occupation  for  those  who  are  out  of  it,  —  an 
association  for  taking  care  of  the  sick,  or  for  watching 
the  children  that  come  from  the  country  into  the  city ; 
if,  more  than  that,  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tions provide  in  the  cities  lawful  amusements  in  suit- 
able places,  so  that,  if  a  man  goes  to  unlawful,  injurious 
amusements,  he  does  it  because  he  wants  to  go  there, 
and  not  because  he  needs  to  go  there  ;  if  they  give  to 
young  men  modes  of  honorable  and  manly  athletic  ex- 
ercise; if  they  visit* the  jails;  if  they  look  after  the 
various  asylums  ;  if  they  become  auxiliaries  of  the  offi- 
cers of  the  law ;  if  they  trace  out  lotteries  and  obscene 


BIBLE-CLASSES  —  MISSION  SCHOOLS— LAY  WORK.       203 

and  abominable  publications,  —  if  they  attempt  to  do 
these  neglected  things,  which  church  organizations  are 
not  well  fitted  to  do,  there  may  be  a  large  sphere  of 
usefulness  for  them.  Otherwise,  I  scarcely  know  why 
men  should  go  to  the  expense,  pains,  and  labor  of  form- 
ing an  organization  for  prayer-meetings,  or  any  other  of 
those  things  which  could  be  just  as  well  developed  in 
their  church  connections. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Do  you  think  the  positive  religious  cast  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations  hinders  them  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  do  not  know  that  it  hinders  them, 
because  the  strictly  religious  element  is  entirely  a  mat- 
ter of  option,  and  the  other  things  in  the  organization 
can  be  taken  without  the  prayer-meeting.  They  do  not 
do  as  they  used  to  sometimes  on  shipboard,  when  sailors 
were  not  allowed  grog  unless  they  came  to  prayer- 
meetings.  The  different  features  are  disconnected. 

Q.  Would  you  have  as  teachers  for  your  Sabbath-school  persons 
who  are  not  members  of  the  church  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  sir ;  I  would.  I  hold  that  no 
man  or  woman  who  goes  into  a  Sunday-school  to  teach, 
can  teach  long  without  becoming  a  Christian.  I  would 
do  it  as  a  means  of  grace  to  the  teacher.  So  far  as  the 
scholar  is  concerned,  the  teaching  will,  for  the  most 
part,  be  correct  in  idea  and  general  feeling,  because  in 
our  Christian  society  and  our  age  of  the  world,  young 
men  and  young  women  are  educated  in  such  a  way 
as  to  carry  with  them  a  vast  amount  of  Christian  feel- 
ing and  Christian  ethics.  I  do  not  believe  that  a  man 
before  he  is  converted  is  a  heathen.  I  think  there 


204          LECTURES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

is  a  law  in  the  household,  in  the  principles  and  customs 
of  society,  a  reflex  light  of  Christianity,  shining  in  upon 
us  from  every  side  of  human  society  ;  and  there  is  not 
a  young  man  or  young  woman  among  us  who  does  not 
possess  a  vast  amount  of  the  real  Christian  element. 
The  fountain  needs  to  be  opened  through  which  the 
supply  shall  come  perennially  from  God.  Nevertheless, 
a  person  not  fully  a  Christian  may  have  been  trained 
so  that  he  is  competent  to  convey  Christian  influence 
and  ideas  to  a  class.  The  attempt  to  move  another 
mind  toward  God  is  one  of  the  most  solemn  things  that 
any  man  ever  undertakes  in  this  world,  one  of  the  fruit- 
ful things,  and  the  most  quickly  blest.  I  was  never  in 
my  life  brought  so  near  to  God  by  prayer,  or  by  read- 
ing, or  by  anything  else,  as  I  have  been  by  the  disclos- 
ure of  the  wants  of  a  soul  that  came  to  me  for  succor 
and  relief.  It  has  exalted  me  immeasurably  higher 
than  any  other  instrumentality  in  the  world.  I  do  not 
believe  that  a  young  man  or  a  young  woman,  con- 
scientious and  susceptible,  can  sit  before  a  class  of  eager, 
palpitating  children  for  many  weeks,  and  not  feel  the 
arrow  in  his  soul. 

Q.  Do  you  believe  in  graded  teaching  in  Sabbath-schools,  such 
as  we  have  in  day  schools  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  sir ;  whenever  you  are  in  cir- 
cumstances where  you  can  apply  that  principle. 

Q.  Would  you  have  teachers  in  Sabbath-schools  who  believed 
in  Universalisrn  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Not  to  teach  it.  That  is,  I  should 
say  a  man  is  not  honest  who  would  go  into  an  Orthodox 
church  and  teach  Universalism  in  the  Sabbath-school, 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.       205 

when  lie  knew  that  that  was  not  the  faith  of  the  church, 
and  not  the  faith  of  the  school.  If  I  believed  in  Uni- 
versalism  ever  so  much,  and  went  into  an  Orthodox 
school,  I  would  teach  everything  but  that ;  I  would 
not  teach  that.  If  I  were  invited  to  preach  for  a 
Methodist,  do  you  suppose  I  would  go  into  his  pulpit 
and  preach  Calvinism,  even  if  I  preached  it  at  home  ? 
There  is  a  principle  of  equity  and  courtesy  always  to 
be  observed. 

Q.  "Would  you  have  the  pastor  or  the  superintendent  conduct 
the  teachers'  meeting  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  The  pastor,  if  he  can,  unless  there 
is  a  better  man,  which  is  not  unfrequently  the  case.  I 
hold  that  you  have  a  right  to  the  gifts  of  everybody  in 
your  church.  There  is  not  a  man  in  my  church  that  I 
have  not  a  right  to.  If  he  is  oak,  I  have  a  right  to  him 
when  I  want  oak ;  and  if  he  is  pine,  I  have  a  right  to 
him  where  pine  is  the  best  thing. 

Q.  In  Bible-classes,  do  you  recommend  question-books,  or 
merely  taking  a  text  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Either  way,  whichever  happens  to  be 
the  best.  Sometimes,  a  question-book.  I  remember 
Cogswell's  Question-Book  on  Divinity,  and  that  I  en- 
joyed the  use  of  it  before  I  went  into  the  ministry ; 
and  I  have  known  great  good  to  be  done  by  it ;  some- 
times by  doing  as  old  Dr.  Humphrey  did  with  Parry, 
—  tearing  it  to  pieces  ;  and  sometimes  by  following  it 
and  teaching  according  to  it. 

Q.  "Would  it  not  be  better  to  leave  the  question-book  and  take 
the  text  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  What  should  prevent  your  doing 


206          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

.sometimes  the  one  thing  and  sometimes  the  other? 
Routine  is  to  be  avoided.  Infinite  variety,  continual 
change,  that  is  the  course  of  nature,  and  that  is  the 
course  of  human  nature  in  society.  Generally  it  is  not 
the  course  in  churches,  and  that  is  the  bane  of  churches. 
We  run  too  much  into  regular  routine.  In  most 
churches,  I  would  not  have  a  Bible-class  all  the  year 
round.  I  would  continue  it  as  long  as  it  ran  fresh  and 
deep  ;  but  if  I  saw  it  begin  to  fail,  I  would  say, "  Breth- 
ren, we  will  adjourn  this  class  for  four  months.  We 
will  go  over  the  harvest  season,  —  or  over  so  long  a 
time.  We  don't  want  to  run  this  thing  into  the  ground. 
We  don't  want  to  gorge  ourselves."  I  would  not  have 
a  person  come  to  prayer-meeting  or  Bible-class  because 
he  thought  he  must.  I  would  try  to  take  off  the  sense 
of  bondage  and  make  things  free  and  pleasant,  make 
men  come  to  church  because  it  is  sweet  to  come  to 
church.  In  order  to  keep  things  fresh  and  lively,  a 
hundred  expedients  must  be  taken.  Never  let  a  prayer- 
meeting  die,  and  then  lay  it  out  in  tears.  Kill  it. 
Q.  Would  n't  that  be  murder  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  sir,  I  have  an  opinion  that  dis- 
criminating and  judicious  murders  are  beneficial. 

Q.  Would  you  have  those  lay  preachers  formally  examined  and 
set  apart  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  would  examine  them  in  this  way : 
I  would  see,  after  they  had  gone  to  work,  what  they  did. 
And  if  they  did  good  work,  I  should  say,  Go  on.  If 
they  did  not,  I  would  examine  to  see  whether  they 
probably  could  do  good  work ;  and  if  I  found  they  could 
by  a  little  instruction  and  help,  I  would  give  it  to  them. 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION  SCHOOLS — LAY  WORK.       207 

I  would  induce  the  sense  of  voluntariness  and  freedom 
just  as  far  as  I  possibly  could,  restraining  it  only  at 
the  point  where  I  thought  it  needed  restraint. 

Q.   Do  you  have  foreigners  in  your  school  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  sir ;  a  great  many  of  them.  We 
reach  the  boys  largely.  We  have  two  reading-rooms 
that  are  free,  one  for  boys  and  one  for  men.  One  free 
reading-room  for  men  —  which  is  lighted  and  warmed, 
and  made  as  cheerful  as  possible,  and  which  accommo- 
dates an  average  of  eighty  or  a  hundred  every  night  — 
was  first  established.  Then  the  boys  wanted  to  come, 
and  we  had  no  accommodations  for  them;  so  we 
had  the  whole  basement  cleaned  out,  floored,  lighted, 
ventilated,  and  decorated,  and  then  we  provided  for  the 
boys  books,  papers,  and  magazines,  illustrated  publica- 
tions particularly.  The  boys  that  came  in  there  were  so 
low  that  we  actually  put  them  in  first  through  the  bath- 
room. We  made  them  wash  their  faces  and  comb  their 
hair.  Some  of  them  were  so  low  that  when  they  saw 
each  other  with  hair  combed  and  faces  washed,  they 
laughed  as  though  it  were  the  best  joke  of  the  season. 
We  had  to  have  policemen  to  keep  the  building  in 
order,  so  wild  were  they.  And  yet  after  they  once 
understood  that  there  was  law  and  power,  we  took  the 
policemen  all  away  as  soon  as  possible,  and  threw 
the  responsibility  of  good  order  upon  the  boys  them- 
selves. They  responded  to  it,  and,  through  all  the  later 
period,  we  have  had  just  as  good  order  among  the  boys 
as  among  the  men.  Now  these  were,  to  a  boy,  foreign- 
ers ;  there  was  not  an  American  boy  in  the  whole  lot. 
And  that  is  not  all ;  there  was  hardly  a  Protestant  boy 
in  the  whole  lot. 


208  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

Q.   Did  you  give  them  amusements  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  We  did.  We  gave  them  checker- 
boards, and  taught  them  how  to  play  with  them.  We 
couldn't  very  well  teach  ball,  or  billiards,  or  tenpins, 
down  in  that  little  building,  but  we  taught  them  check- 
ers, which  they  could  play. 

Q.  How  would  you  treat  Sunday-school  scholars  that  are 
persistently  disorderly  1 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  that  is  a  pretty  tough  ques- 
tion. In  a  Sunday-school  class  that  is  persistently  dis- 
orderly, it  might  come  to  such  a  pass  that  you  would 
be  obliged  to  exclude  single  boys  among  them ;  but  I 
think  that  patient  continuance  in  loving  sympathy  and 
kindness  would  subdue  almost  any  class.  At  least, 
if  it  did  n't  do  any  good  to  the  boys,  it  would  to  the 
teacher. 

Q.  You  spoke  of  the  conversion  of  a  great  many  of  the  young 
men.  What  was  the  habit  of  the  teachers  in  respect  to  the 
visitation  of  those  at  their  homes,  besides  their  instruction  in 
school ?  " 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  cannot  say  as  to  that.  I  only 
know  that,  wherever  there  was  sickness  and  trouble, 
the  teacher  or  teachers  knew  of  it,  and  visited  there. 
In  other  words,  there  was  a  perfect  system  of  pastoral 
care  in  our  Bethel  Mission  School.  The  parish  is  so 
large  that  I  am  bishop  now,  you  know,  and  my  curates, 
or  under-ministers,  perform  the  functions  of  the 
ministry.  So,  if  I  cannot  be  had,  the  superintendent 
of  the  Home  School  is  competent  to  go  to  the  funeral 
of  any  of  the  people  in  that  school,  and  minister  to 
edification.  The  superintendent  of  the  Bethel  Mission, 
too,  is  competent,  and  there  are  others  who  are  active 


BIBLE-CLASSES — MISSION   SCHOOLS — LAY  WOEK.      209 

and  able.  The  people  receive  it,  because  these  are  the 
persons  who  are  teaching  them,  who  are  all  the  time 
doing  them  good.  And  when  there  is  sickness  or  death 
in  the  house,  these  are  the  very  persons  whom  they  like 
to  see.  I  have  twenty  men  who,  I  believe,  if  you  were 
to  send  them  anywhere  on  the  two  continents,  would 
not  stay  a  month  without  establishing  what  was  equiv- 
alent to  a  church  center,  and  they  would  administer 
ordinances  and  go  forward  with  the  whole  work  of  the 
gospel  ;  because  I  teach  everybody  that  preaching 
ordinances,  everything,  is  subordinate  to  manhood,  and 
that  he  who  is  a  man  in  Christ  Jesus  owns  all  things. 
Sunday  does  not  own  him,  the  church  does  not  own 
him  ;  he  owns  Sunday,  he  owns  the  church,  he  owns 
the  Bible,  he  owns  the  ordinances ;  and  any  man  who 
has  faith  in  Christ  and  love  to  God,  and  who  sees  there 
is  an  opportunity  of  doing  good  by  it,  has  a  right  to 
distribute  emblems,  bread  and  wine,  to  anybody  who 
needs  them.  It  is  the  Christ  in  him  that  gives  him 
authority  over  everything  else.  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  power  obtained  by  bringing  up  a  set  of  men  who 
believe  this,  and  practice  it  too. 


VIII. 
THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EEVIVALS. 

TWO   EXTREMES   OF   OPINION. 

PUEPOSE  this  afternoon  to  begin  the  con- 
sideration of  the  general  subject  of  revivals. 
There  are,  besides  the  intermediate  view,  two 
extreme  opinions  which  are  entertained  on 
this  important  topic.  On  the  one  side,  there  are  those 
who  regard  the  existence  of  revivals  as  perhaps,  in  our 
day,  the  most  eminent  instance  of  immediate  Divine 
presence  that  is  vouchsafed  to  the  world.  They  are 
regarded  with  a  reverence  that  borders  even  upon 
superstition.  Often  one  would  think,  by  what  men 
utter,  that  not  only  were  revivals  out  of  the 
course  of  nature,  but  that  ordinary  laws  were  so  sus- 
pended in  them  that  our  experience  in  other  relations 
threw  but  very  little  light  upon  the  questions  connected 
with  them.  At  the  opposite  extreme  are  those  who 
regard  revivals  of  religion  as  the  most  remarkable  ex- 
hibitions of  morbid  emotion  which  can  now  be  found ; 
believing  that,  if  they  do  not  spring  from  Satanic  influ- 
ence, they  yet  represent  the  wildest  and  most  spasmodic 
forms  of  unregulated  human  feeling  and  fantasy. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.  211 


THE  HISTOEIC  VIEW. 

I  purpose  to-day  to  enter  upon  some  general  consid- 
erations, showing  on  what  grounds  I  believe  in  re- 
vivals of  religion,  and  answering  many  of  the  objections 
which  exist  in  the  minds  of  those  who  do  not  believe 
in  them  or  labor  for  them.  Looking  back  over  history, 
we  find  that  all  nations  have  been  subject  to  great 
swells  of  impassioned  feeling ;  that  these  impetuous 
outbreaks  have  not  been  casual  and  meaningless,  but 
have  been  intimately  connected  with  some  of  the  most 
important  steps  that  the  world  has  made ;  that  they 
stand  in  close  relations  to  civil  policy ;  that  they  are 
intimately  connected  with  commercial  impulse  and 
prosperity ;  that  they  have  their  place  in  the  realm  of 
art ;  that  they  belong  to  literature ;  that  they  spread, 
in  short,  over  so  much  of  human  history  as  to  take  in, 
from  first  to  last,  every  part  of  the  human  mind  and  its 
experiences. 

THE  REVIVAL  ELEMENT  IN  JUDAISM. 

As  we  all  think  that  the  Hebrew  history  has  in 
it  something  more  sacred  than  any  other ;  as  Matthew 
Arnold  holds  that  the  Hebrews  were  employed  by 
Divine  Providence  to  develop  more  perfectly  than  any 
other  nation  the  great,  deep,  moral  sentiments,  —  it  is 
very  interesting  to  look  back  and  see  how  largely  the 
substantial  element  of  religious  revivals  entered  into 
their  economy.  I  do  not  need  to  dwell  on  prodigious 
outbursts  like  that  which  took  place  when  Elijah  gath- 
ered together  all  the  prophets  of  Baal,  and  introduced 
new  measures  with  a  vengeance,  and  slew  them  all. 


212          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

That,  of  course,  was  not  a  revival  of  pure  and  unde- 
filed  religion,  in  any  such  sense  as  we  understand  by 
the  phrase  in  modern  times;  but  certainly  it  was  a 
wild  effort  of  the  people  to  throw  off  the  domination 
of  idolatry.  They  were  inspired  to  a  more  generous 
thought  of  God  and  of  their  own  religion,  and  to  a 
momentary  detestation  of  the  oppressive  idolatry  that 
was  fixed  upon  them  by  the  royal  family. 

I  need  not  point  to  those  great  popular  uprisings  that 
took  place  in  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple,  in  the  rescu- 
ing of  the  nation  from  foreign  bondage.  I  point  espe- 
cially to  this,  that  the  revival  economy,  in  its  essential 
element,  was  incorporated  into  the  Mosaic  system.  For 
I  hold  that  the  three  great  annual  visits  of  the  whole 
Jewish  male  population  to  Jerusalem  were  substan- 
tially nothing  more  than  "  prQtracted  meetings  "  held  by 
the  whole  population  of  Judsea.  The  entire  people  was 
assembled  at  the  three  great  feasts,  and  we  have  record 
of  the  transporting  effects  Which  often  took  place  when 
they  all  mingled  together,  and  the  whole  national  heart 
throbbed  in  unison  to  the  same  thought  and  the  same 
feeling.  It  was  a  saying  among  the  old  Jewish  writers, 
that  he  who  had  never  been  present  at  one  of  the  days, 
—  a  certain  day  in  the  Feast  of  the  Tabernacles,  I 
think  it  was,  —  and  seen  the  rejoicing  on  that  day, 
could  not  know  what  joy  was.  For  the  Jews,  I  had 
almost  said,  deified  enjoyment.  In  the  Hebrew  litera- 
ture there  are  expressions  of  joy,  from  the  lowest  up  to 
the  very  highest  rapture,  such  as  I  find  nowhere  in 
modern  literature;  and  they  are  intimately  connected 
with  the  development  of  religious  life.  Now,  these 
great  festivals  of  the  Jews  were  really  organized 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.        213 

national  institutions  for  the  promotion  of  revivals. 
This  will  be  more  apparent  when  we  come  to  look  par- 
ticularly into  the  nature  and  operation  of  the  revival 
spirit. 

REVIVALS  IN  CHRIST'S   MINISTRY. 

At  a  later  period,  if  you  will  look  closely  into  the 
life  of  the  Saviour,  I  think  you  will  find  that  during 
pretty  nearly  all  of  his  Galilean  life,  —  which  was,  I 
suspect,  more  than  two  thirds  of  the  whole  of  his  min- 
isterial life,  —  the  people  around  him  were  in  what  can 
be  regarded  only  as  a  state  of  religious  revival.  That 
is  to  say,  there  was  such  an  excitement  of  the  whole 
population  wherever  he  went,  that  all  other  things  fell 
into  the  background,  and  the  mass  of  the  people  gave 
way  to  one  feeling  and  one  impulse,  following  him. 
And  wherever  he  went,  it  was  so.  When  he  went  up 
to  Jerusalem,  it  was  scarcely  less  marked  than  in 
Galilee.  After  his  conflicts  in  the  Temple,  he  was 
driven  out  for  a  time  and  took  refuge  in  Perea,  or 
across  the  Jordan.  And,  although  we  have  almost  no 
topographical  details  of  his  residence  there,  it  would 
seem  that,  in  the  multitude  of  parables  that  there  fell 
out  from  him,  this  period  transcended  any  other  in  his 
whole  life.  It  was  there  and  then  that  some  of  the 
most  stupendous  of  his  miracles,  as  well  as  the  great- 
est number  of  them,  seem  to  have  taken  place.  The 
same  things,  it  would  seem,  took  place  at  the  other 
side  of  the  Jordan.  So  it  is  fair,  I  presume,  to  say 
that  the  whole  of  the  Saviour's  ministerial  life,  at  least 
the  part  of  it  that  stands  on  record,  was  passed  in 
what  we  may  call  substantially  a  revival  work. 


214  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 


REVIVALS   IN   MODERN   TIME. 

Now  we  know  that,  in  subsequent  periods,  the 
church  was  subject  to  these  great  Divine  freshets,  if  I 
may  so  call  them.  The  rains  upon  the  mountains 
filled  the  immediate  channels  fuller  than  they  could 
hold,  and  they  overflowed  their  banks  and  spread  fer- 
tility on  both  sides,  clear  down  to  the  time  of  the 
Eeformation,  which  was  itself  a  grand  revival  of  re- 
ligion. And,  from  that  time  down  to  this,  revivals  have 
been  more  and  more  frequent.  In  our  day,  revivals 
of  religion  are  known,  I  had  almost  said,  in  every  de- 
nomination. There  is  that  leading  primitive  sect,  the 
Eoman  Catholic  Church  :  they  not  only  have  revivals, 
but  with  their  usual  good  sense,  having  seen  how  well 
they  work  in  Protestant  churches,  they  have  adopted 
the  principle,  and  now  they  have  what  are  called  Mis- 
sions, sending  out  revival  preachers  —  for  they  are 
nothing  but  that  —  and  holding  protracted  meetings 
two  and  three  days,  or  seven  days,  if  need  be,  and 
bringing  their  flocks,  especially  the  more  ignorant  por- 
tions of  them,  into  precisely  those  conditions  into 
which  we  strive  to  bring  men  in  revival  labors. 

In  the  Presbyterian  churches,  in  the  Congregational 
churches,  in  the  Methodist  churches,  in  the  Baptist 
churches,  in  all  the  churches  of  the  great  sects  in  the 
land,  excepting  perhaps  the  Episcopal  Church,  revivals 
of  religion  are  prevalent.  The  universality  of  this 
phenomenon  would  lead  one  to  ask,  "  Is  there  not  some- 
thing in  the  human  mind  itself  that  leads  to  such 
results  ?  Ought  we  not  to  look  for  a  philosophical 
undercurrent  in  this  matter  ? "  I  think  that  if  you  look 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF   REVIVALS.  215 

a  little  at  the  action  of  the  human  mind,  you  will  see 
that  there  is  the  explanation  of  it. 

THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  EXPLANATION. 

There  are,  if  I  may  so  say,  three  states  or  conditions 
of  excitability  in  the  faculties  of  men.  There  is  the 
state  of  acquiescence,  or  the  latent  condition  of  a 
faculty:  that  is,  the  faculty  exists,  but  there  is  no  au- 
tomatic action,  no  habitual  response  from  it.  For  in- 
stance, there  are  many  persons  that  have  a  feeble  sus- 
ceptibility to  beauty  of  color ;  so  that  if  you  bring  a 
compound,  intense,  and  solar  red  to  bear  upon  them, 
you  can  strike  through  the  torpor  of  their  taste  and 
make  them  feel  that  there  is  something  beautiful  in 
color ;  but  this  capacity  is  low  in  them,  it  is  sluggish. 
There  are  a  great  many  persons  who  have  faculties  and 
affections  of  various  kinds,  which  are  in  just  that  frigid, 
inactive  state,  and  which  require  the  intensest  stimula- 
tion to  develop  them.  The  reason  why  uncultivated 
people  like  brilliant  colors  is  no  other  than  this :  the 
principle  of  taste  or  the  sense  of  beauty  in  them  is  so 
torpid  that  it  requires  intensity  to  bring  from  it  the 
same  response  which  is,  in  cultivated  people,  aroused 
by  a  very  much  milder  tone  of  color.  This  is  a  fair 
analogy  for  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind.  There  is  a 
second  state,  in  which  the  faculties  of  men  are  ordi- 
narily excitable  and  in  even  play.  Then  comes  the 
highest,  the  automatic  form,  in  which  the  mind  acts 
spontaneously  and  of  itself.  There  are  hundreds  of  men 
who  think,  when  you  pierce  them  with  incitement  to 
thought.  But  there  are  men  whose  cerebral  activity  is 
such  that,  whether  they  wish  it  or  not,  they  are  con- 


216          LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

tinually  creative.     The  creative  states,  the  automatic 
habits,  of  faculty  are  the  highest. 

Now,  experience  shows  that  it  is  not  possible  to  de- 
velop these  higher  forms  in  the  minds  of  ordinary  men, 
if  you  take  them  singly.  In  other  words,  you  can- 
not develop  the  higher  feelings  to  the  highest  degree, 
by  aiming  simply  at  those  faculties.  You  must  stir 
up  the  mind  in  its  totality.  The  passions,  the  appe- 
tites, all  the  force-giving  elements  in  the  mind, — 
the  whole  commonwealth  of  the  soul,  —  has  got  to  hear 
the  trumpet  blow,  and  everything  that  is  in  the  man, 
from  top  to  bottom,  and  from  side  to  side,  must  wake 
up,  and  everything  become  auxiliary  to  every  other 
thing  in  the  soul.  And  here  you  have  the  suggestion 
of  a  general  principle,  namely,  the  necessity  to  individ- 
ual faculties  of  help  from  collaterals  or  inferiors.  If 
you  take  this  principle  and  test  its  application  in  a  com- 
munity, you  will  find  that  precisely  the  same  law  holds 
good  outside  of  the  individual  mind,  in  respect  to  the 
great  elements  of  human  interest,  that  exists  within  the 
mind  as  a  psychological  fact*  You  will  find  that  the 
great  mass  of  the  community  are  in  such  conditions  that 
they  cannot  rise  unless  they  are  socially  helped,  —  they 
cannot  rise  alone.  There  are  very  few  persons  in  the 
community,  even  among  those  whom  we  call  intelligent 
men,  who  are  competent  to  do  for  themselves  any  satis- 
factory amount  of  thinking.  But  let  them  converse ; 
let  them  walk  from  morning  to  evening  with  those 
who  are  interested  in  the  same  things  (especially  if 
there  be  as  many  as  three  or  four),  and  you  shall  find 
that  they  will  avail  themselves  of  this  social  influ- 
ence to  become  far  richer  and  more  active  thinkers 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.  217 

than  they  could  be  by  themselves.  The  same  principle 
works  in  the  elements  of  moral  emotion.  Society  of 
feeling  helps  feeling.  There  are  many  of  our  moral 
feelings  that  would  almost  never  act  but  for  auxiliaries. 
I  will  take  a  familiar  instance  in  the  case  of  conscience, 
a  faculty  which  all  have  or  are  supposed  to  have,  and 
which  yet,  after  all,  is  far  from  being  a  leading  faculty. 
If  there  are  one  or  two  men  in  a  thousand  who  have 
the  sense  of  conscience  pure  and  unmingled,  then  there 
are  more  men  of  genius  in  conscience  than  there  are  in 
poetry  or  in  art.  Nine  men  in  ten,  yes,  ninety-nine 
men  in  one  hundred,  have  their  conscience  in  such  a 
state  that  it  never  acts  except  through  some  auxiliary 
feeling.  Here  is  one  man  who  never  has  any  conscience 
in  ordinary  things  ;  but  when  his  taste  is  offended,  in 
other  words,  when  the  sentiment  of  taste  as  an  auxiliary 
stirs  up  the  moral  sense,  then  he  is  keenly  sensitive  to 
right  and  wrong.  In  some  communities,  and  in  some 
churches,  you  will  find  that  the  moral  sense  is  nothing 
in  the  world  but  conscience  formed  through  taste  or 
imagination.  That  which  is  beautiful  is  very  likely  to 
be  holy  to  them,  and  that  which  is  repulsive  to  taste  is 
thought  to  be  wicked ;  wickedness  covered  with  all 
beauty  is  not  so  very  wicked  after  all  to  such  men. 
Their  conscience  acts  through  this  auxiliary,  and  takes 
its  colors  and  hues  from  it.  Again,  there  are  some  men 
who  are  conscientious,  when  I  present  conscience  to 
them  in  the  light  of  benevolence  and  sympathy.  To  a 
man  of  benevolence,  everything  that  is  cruel  is  wicked ; 
and  anything  that  has  kindness  in  it  can  hardly  be 
wrong.  There  are  other  men  who  are  affected  by 
the  sense  of  shame  and  by  self-esteem.  For  instance, 

VOL.   II.  10 


218          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

many  a  man  will  steal  and  rob  and  commit  murder, 
and  never  have  a  pang  till  you  catch  him,  put  him 
in  prison,  and  bring  to  bear  upon  him  the  gaze  of  the 
whole  community.  Then,  under  the  sense  of  shame 
and  wounded  approbativeness,  the  man  begins  to  look 
back  upon  his  deeds,  and  to  feel  that  they  were  mon- 
strous. It  is  only  the  shame  that  comes  in  to  represent 
conscience  that  kindles  the  flame  in  him.  There  are  men 
who,  under  cover  of  law,  will  steal  and  lie,  —  in  a  cred- 
itable manner,  —  and  never  feel  any  compunction  for 
it,  never  feel  that  they  violate  any  canon  of  morality. 
You  must  put  the  faculty  of  self-esteem  in  these  men 
in  such  a  position  that  it  becomes  auxiliary  to  con- 
science, and  then  they  begin  to  have  a  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  in  the  matter  of  truth  and  of  fair  dealing. 
Their  conscience  interprets  through  these  auxiliaries. 

Now,  that  which  takes  place  within  the  man,  I  say, 
takes  place  without  him.  There  are  in  the  community 
vast  multitudes  of  men  who,  if  they  are  to  be  roused 
and  made  to  have  any  vivid  emotion,  must  be  reached 
by  rousing  up  those  about  them,  so  that  they  shall  have 
these  for  assistants.  If  you  should  put  one  man  before 
a  minister,  and  let  the  minister  preach  to  him  as  Jona- 
than Edwards  would  have  preached,  he  could  not  raise 
that  man  to  any  high  level  of  feeling,  or  even  begin  to 
do  it,  as  he  could  if  there  were  added  to  him  five  hun- 
dred other  men  sitting  there  together,  all  receiving  the 
same  impulse,  and  all,  through  sympathy,  radiating  the 
same  impulse  to  each  other. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  REVIVALS.  219 


ACCEPTING  NATURES  LAWS. 

When  you  come  to  look  upon  the  community  as  it  is, 
to  judge  of  things  as  they  are,  and  not  as  they  ought 
to  be,  you  will  reason  about  men  as  we  reason  in 
the  garden  about  plants.  I  don't  go  into  my  grounds 
and  say,  "  Look  here ;  these  hollyhocks  ought  not  to 
grow  taller  than  daisies ;  they  do,  to  be  sure,  but  then 
they  ought  not  to."  I  never  question  Nature  in  that 
way.  On  the  other  hand,  I  always  humbly  impor- 
tune Nature,  saying,  "  Tell  me  thy  will,  and  then,  by 
obeying,  I  will  command  thee."  I  take  everything 
according  to  its  nature,  —  the  tuberous  root,  the  fibrous 
root,  the  ligneous,  the  herbaceous,  the  high,  the  low, 
the  blossoming,  —  each  and  every  thing  according  to  its 
nature.  Now,  in  going  out  into  the  community,  there 
is  nothing  that  will  be  more  likely  to  mislead  you  than 
that  despotic  "  ought."  A  man  stands  in  the  pulpit 
and  preaches  sermons  that  are  away  over  the  head  of 
everybody,  and  when  you  expostulate  with  him  he  will 
say,  "  Oh,  they  ought  to  come  up  to  such  thoughts  ;  they 
ought  to  like  such  themes."  You  have  got  to  work 
among  men  as  they  are.  To  the  weak,  you  must  be 
weak;  to  the  strong,  strong.  Among  the  Jews  you 
must  be  a  Jew,  and  among  the  Gentiles  you  must  be  as 
a  Gentile.  If  you  can  do  it  half  as  skillfully  as  Paul  did, 
—  and  he  could  not  do  it  so  skillfully  but  that  he  was 
caught  a  good  many  times,  —  you  will  have  more  suc- 
cess in  your  ministry  than  if  you  adopt  the  iron 
method,  and  undertake  to  bring  everybody  under  it. 
Now,  looking  upon  the  subject  in  this  light,  knowing 
these  inward  tendencies  in  men,  I  aver  that  the  contro- 


220          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

versy  between  fixed  institutions  and  occasional  impulses 
is  one  tliat  will  very  soon  be  settled. 

REGULAR  INSTITUTIONS  INADEQUATE. 

It  is  said  by  those  who  do  not  believe  in  revivals, 
"  It  is  far  better  that  you  should  preach  the  gospel 
regularly,  methodically  ;  follow  it  up  by  proper  visita- 
tion and  by  all  manner  of  appliances ;  and  then  you 
can  control  the  influences  and  the  results.  A  com- 
munity that  is  educated  in  this  way  is  a  great  deal  bet- 
ter than  if  it  were  subject  to  these  starts  and  impulses 
and  wild  phantasms  that  come  in  revivals  of  religion." 
Now,  in  the  first  place,  I  say  that  there  is  not  a  com- 
munity on  this  continent  that  numbers  its  population 
by  many  thousands,  in  which  the  church  institutions 
are  sufficient  to  reach  the  want  of  the  whole  popula- 
tion. The  church  has  not  wings  broad  enough  to 
spread  over  the  whole  population  and  brood  it.  Even 
if  there  were  containing  power  enough  in  the  church 
edifices,  the  people  do  not  flow  into  them.  Though  the 
matter  has  been  debated  and  discussed,  and  though 
every  means  has  been  taken,  the  fact  remains  that  the 
mass  of  the  population  —  and,  if  you  take  the  con- 
tinent, I  think  I  may  say  two  thirds  of  the  population 
of  the  continent  of  America  —  to-day  seldom  enter 
churches.  Two  thirds  of  the  salvable  men  do  not  come 
within  the  influence  of  these  regular  institutions.  A^7hat 
are  you  going  to  do  for  them  ?  Is  everything  to  take 
the  gauge  of  these  fixed,  stationary  institutions,  which 
have  in  them  almost  no  elasticity,  whose  very  peculiar- 
ity is  steadfastness,  continuity  in  the  same  ways  ? 

I  do  not  undervalue  the  stated  institutions  of  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EEVIVALS.        221 

church,  —  which  I  take  to  be  the  household,  or  the 
church  itself,  with  all  its  schools,  and  all  the  schools  that 
are  brought  immediately  under  the  direct  evangelical 
influence  of  Christian  men.  All  these  are  permanent 
engines  doing  a  great  work,  which  is  not  to  be  maligned 
nor  undervalued  in  the  slightest  degree,  but  which  is 
supplemented  by  another  influence,  —  one  which  they 
are  seldom  able  to  exert,  but  which  is  indispensable 
for  the  whole  community. 

CHURCHES   THEMSELVES  NEED  REVIVING. 

Again,  I  think  that  stated  institutions  need  revivals 
just  as  much  as  people  do  outside  of  them.  The  ten- 
dency of  all  institutions  is  to  formalism.  Eegularity 
begets  formalism.  The  burden  and  the  grief  of  every 
man  that  ever  undertook  to  administer  in  a  college,  in  a 
theological  seminary,  or  in  a  church,  —  whether  with  or 
without  liturgy,  with  or  without  regular  service,  —  is 
the  constant  tendency  to  wear  ruts  and  to  make  dead 
machines  of  things.  One  of  the  crying  necessities  of 
the  church  and  of  its  institutions  is,  to  make  pro- 
vision in  some  way  for  the  rational,  the  inspirational. 
There  is  a  conflict  between  organization  and  the  irregu- 
lar but  genuine  impulses  of  men.  Spontaneity  and 
regularity,  or  organization,  are  at  war.  I  say  they 
ought  to  be  friends.  I  say  that  while  you  have  your 
forts  and  your  solid  armies,  you  need  also  your  cavalry, 
your  pickets  and  skirmishers  and  light  troops  of  every 
kind,  scouring  the  whole  region  around ;  and  that  re- 
vivals of  religion  are  nowhere  else  so  beneficial  and  so 
necessary  as  where  there  are  strong,  intrenched,  and 
highly  organized  religious  bodies.  They  need  just  this 


222          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

counteracting  influence.  It  is  purgation  to  them.  It 
clears  off  the  old  humors.  It  gives  to  them  new  life 
and  new  strength. 

NEEDS   OF    THOSE  WITHOUT  THE  CHURCH. 

I  have  said  that  revivals  are  necessary  to  the  churches 
themselves.  In  respect  to  the  great  mass  of  the  com- 
munity that  lies  outside  of  the  churches  they  are  indis- 
pensable ;  otherwise  such  people  will  live  and  die  almost 
under  the  eaves  of  churches,  without  having  experi- 
enced any  salutary  religious  influences.  I  do  not  now 
speak  of  the  dregs  of  society.  There  you  will  find  a 
class,  the  treatment  of  which  is  a  very  difficult  problem ; 
but  that  is  another  and  a  different  case.  Go  above 
these ;  go  among  the  ordinary,  the  working,  the  half- 
intelligent,  the  commonly  ignorant  people.  Go  into 
the  households.  Here  and  there  you  will  find  a  shrewd 
woman ;  here  and  there  you  will  find  a  thoughtful 
man ;  but  take  common  folks  as  they  are,  and  my  own 
impression,  from  acquaintance  with  them,  is,  that  there 
are  very  few  households,  outside  of  Christian  churches, 
that  generate  moral  thoughts,  or  religious  thoughts,  or 
religious  impulses.  The  higher  feelings  are  extremely 
weak  in  them.  If  there  is  any  way  by  which  they  can 
be  reached  and  aroused,  it  must  be  by  some  means 
through  which  you  can  lift  the  whole  community,  — 
something  in  the  nature  of  these  revivals  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking. 

FANATICISM  :  HOW  PREVENTED. 

It  is  said  by  those  who  are  not  in  favor  of  revivals, 
that  they  tend  to  a  wild  fanaticism.     That  is  precisely 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  KEVIVALS.        223 

as  if  a  man  should  dissuade  us  from  breaking  colts  and 
using  them  on  the  farm,  and  on  the  road,  by  saying 
that  horses  run  away.  So  they  do,  if  they  are  not  well 
broken  or  well  driven ;  but  I  have  never  regarded  that 
as  a  satisfactory  reason  why  horses  should  not  be  used. 
A  wild,  popular  impulse  may  run  away  with  the  com- 
munity. Let  me  say  here,  —  though  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  repeat  it  more  analytically  by  and  by,  —  revivals 
of  religion  are  violent  and  untamable  just  in  the  propor- 
tion in  which  they  are  rare.  They  become  amenable  to 
good  management  just  in  the  proportion  in  which  they 
are  frequent.  Where  communities  have  been  abso- 
lutely neglected,  when  the  fountains  of  moral  feeling 
are  for  the  first  time  in  many  years  broken  up,  then  you 
may  expect  catastrophe ;  then  you  may  expect  a  flood 
on  the  community.  The  fault  lies  not  in  the  recur- 
rence of  life ;  it  is  the  long  death  in  which  the  com- 
munity has  been  left  that  occasions  the  irregularities. 
The  rebound  will  be  just  in  proportion  to  the  long 
decline  and  apathy.  So  far  is  it  from  necessary  that 
revivals  of  religion  should  run  to  fanaticism,  they  are 
the  sweetest,  the  mildest,  the  most  regulable,  as  they 
are,  in  every  respect,  the  most  congenial  to  the  best 
human  nature,  of  all  the  states  of  religious  feeling  that 
prevail  in  a  community,  when  they  are  recognized, 
prayed  for,  and  dealt  with  fairly. 

LIFE   BETTER  THAN   DEATH. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  work  that  is  done  by  revivals 
of  religion  is  not  to  be  compared  in  quality  with  the 
work  that  is  done  by  churches  in  their  ordinary 
methods.  I  do  not  believe  it.  I  do  not  think  that  a 


224          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

mail  who  has  been  brought  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  church  is  likely 
to  be  any  better  than  one  who  has  been  brought  in 
through  the  instrumentality  of  a  great  and  powerful 
outpouring  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  There  may  be  some 
respects  in  which  he  would  be  even  less  excellent.  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  revivals  of  religion  do  bring  people 
up,  do  inspire  their  moral  nature,  do  root  them  out  of 
old  soil,  do  give  them  an  elevation  that  they  had  not 
before.  If,  as  a  result  of  this,  there  should  be  here  and 
there  miscarriages,  here  and  there  instances  of  failure, 
is  it  not  so  in  everything  ?  Does  every  single  head  of 
wheat  fill  out  in  the  harvest-field  ?  Does  all  fruit  ripen 
that  "  sets "  in  the  spring  ?  And  is  all  that  which 
swells  till  the  lasses  of  summer  bring  blushes  to  its 
cheek,  —  is  all  that  fit  for  the  bin  and  for  the  winter  ? 
Is  there  not  much  wastage  everywhere  ?  Do  all  people 
that  are  brought  up  in  regular  church  connection  turn 
out  well  ?  Are  there  not  failures  among  the  regulars  as 
well  as  among  the  militia  ?  It  is  said  that  these  re- 
vivals of  religion  pour  a  stream  of  raw,  uncultured 
men  upon  the  community.  No,  they  do  not ;  those 
men  were  in  the  community  before.  "  Ah !  but  they 
are  religious  now."  Then  you  wrould  rather  have  them 
dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  and  regular,  than  to  have 
them  trying  to  be  better  men  and  scrambling  on  all 
fours  !  When  the  choice  is  life  or  death,  let  it  be  life. 
When  Lazarus  arose  from  the  grave  and  came  forth, 
bound  hand  and  foot,  what  if,  before  the  word  was 
given,  "  Loose  him,  and  take  off  his  head-piece  and  his 
shroud,"  he  had  stumbled  a  little,  and  the  disciples 
had  said,  "Well,  this  raising  men  from  the  dead  is 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  KEVIVALS.  225 

not  what  we  thought  it  was,  after  all ;  see  how  he 
stumbles  !"  "When  men  have  been  dead  without 
knowing  it ;  when  men  have  been  long  dead,  till  they 
stink  in  their  vices  and  their  evil  habits,  —  pride,  self- 
ishness, worldliness,  —  anything  that  puts  in  them  the 
germ  of  life  is  better  than  that  long  propriety  of  damna- 
tion !  But  then,  respectability  rules  in  such  things. 

RELIGIOUS  EXCITEMENT  NOT  DANGEROUS. 

It  is  said  that,  during  revivals  of  religion,  men  come 
under  great  excitement,  and  do  things  which  they  would 
not  do  when  under  the  influence  of  calm  reason.  That 
is  true.  You  will  notice  that  nobody  is  afraid  of  ex- 
citement in  politics,  though  it  run  so  high  that  it  looks 
as  if,  at  the  touch  of  a  spark,  there  would  be  a 
universal  conflagration.  Nobody  is  afraid  of  over- 
excitement  in  Wall  Street.  Nobody  is  afraid  of  too 
high  excitement  in  the  ordinary  run  of  social  festivi- 
ties. It  is  only  when  men  begin  to  feel  that  they  are 
sinners  before  God,  and  that  they  need  to  be  born 
again,  and  begin  to  have  such  a^sense  of  heaven  that 
they  cannot  bear  to  lose  it ;  it  is  only  when  gross  mat- 
ter begins  to  die  out  of  sight,  and  ethereal  visions  come 
before  the  soul,  that  we  hear  men  croaking,  "  Modera- 
tion !  moderation  !  Let  your  moderation  be  known  to  all 
men."  Moderation  in  combativeness  ?  "  Let  that  fly ! " 
Moderation  in  acquisitiveness  ?  "  No,  no ;  catch  and 
get,  catch  and  get."  Moderation  in  vanity,  moderation 
in  pride,  moderation  in  the  'ten  thousand  baser  compli- 
ances of  life  ?  No,  nobody  is  distressed  about  modera- 
tion there.  But  when  there  is  immoderation  in  sor- 
row for  sin,  when  there  is  excitement,  lest  men  shall 
10*  o 


226          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

lose  their  souls,  then  some  begin  to  be  alarmed ; 
they  are  so  afraid  that  everybody  will  suddenly 
become  angelic  and  tumble  off  the  precipice  into 
heaven !  Why,  that  is  not  the  danger ;  that  is  not  the 
direction  in  which  you  need  to  set  up  marks.  What  if,  on 
a  road  with  an  abyss  on  one  side  and  a  cliff  on  the  other, 
we  should  put  up  all  the  barriers  on  the  cliff  side  and 
leave  the  precipice  open ;  would  it  be  wise  ?  Are  we 
in  danger  of  too  much  and  too  continuous  excitement 
in  spiritual  directions  ?  Do  not  the  sounds  of  life 
drown  the  thunders  of  eternity  in  men's  ears?  Are 
there  not  ten  thousand  boiling  caldrons  of  passion 
and  feeling  underneath  them  ?  Is  not  every  great  in- 
terest of  society  pulling  upon  them  ?  —  the  household, 
the  store,  the  shop,  the  office,  all  processes  of  business 
and  of  civil  society  ?  Are  not  men  wrecked  with  the 
thousand  worldly  things  that  are  tending  to  undermine 
faith,  to  blind  spiritual  vision  ?  And  is  it  not  a  great 
grace  and  mercy  when,  even  if  it  comes  with  imperfec- 
tion, —  and  what  man  is  without  it  ?  —  there  is  an  ex- 
citement that  lifts  men  up  out  of  the  slough,  lifts  them 
out  of  all  their  entanglements  ? 

In  early  days,  in  Indianapolis,  when  the  city  was 
first  built,  an  old  settler  told  me  the  trees  were  so  thick 
in  the  streets  that  he  forgot  how  the  sky  looked,  and,  in 
order  to  see  it,  he  had  to  walk  a  mile  down  to  the  White 
Eiver.  There  he  could  look  up  and  see  all  the  sky. 
He  used  to  go  down  and  look  for  a  long  time,  it  was  so 
refreshing  to  his  eyes.  In  communities  where  business 
is  like  a  thick  forest  collected  overhead,  so  that  one 
cannot  see  the  stars  by  night  nor  the  skies  by  day, 
when  these  storms  of  life  come  on,  —  these  blessed 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EEVIVALS.        227 

irruptions  of  revival  influence,  —  men  are  carried,  as  it 
were,  down  to  the  stream  where  they  can  see  the  whole 
heavens  above  them.  And  what  if,  under  such  circum- 
stances, there  is  some  little  excitement  ?  Cannot  you 
bear  with  it,  for  the  ends  it  looks  toward  ?  Anything  for 
life  !  There  is  no  heresy  on  earth  like  lethargy.  There 
is  nothing  so  deadly,  so  dangerous,  here  and  hereafter, 
as  to  go  on  from  month  to  month  in  a  calm  propriety, 
in  an  external  seeming,  and  yet  to  have  all  the  fountains 
of  feeling  that  bring  men  home  to  God  shut  up  and  frozen ! 
But  then  it  is  said  that,  when  men  come  under  these 
impetuous  influences,  these  high-toned  feelings,  it  results 
in  deceptions  and  in  spurious  conversions.  Certainly  it 
does.  I  do  not  know  any  economy  that  does  not  bring 
out  those  results.  Men  that  attempt  to  come  into  the 
kingdom  of  God  head-first  are  just  as  liable  to  go  wrong 
as  those  that  go  heart-first:  I  think  they  are  more 
liable  to  go  wrong.  The  regular  church  is  to  revivals 
what  greenhouses  are  to  the  summer.  Greenhouses 
do  very  well ;  they  make  heat ;  they  have  their  own 
stove  and  stoker ;  all  they  want  is  brought  into  their 
little  space ;  and  when,  by  and  by,  the  robins  and  blue- 
birds come,  and  the  elms  begin  to  bud,  and  the.  maples 
show  their  tassels,  and  people  say  that  summer  is  abroad 
in  the  land,  the  old  gardener  walks  out,  and  says,  "  Look 
here,  I  don't  like  this  summer.  There  are  no  toads  in 
iny  house,  but  there  will  be  toads  abroad  now  soon. 
Snakes  don't  get  in  here,  this  is  safe  ;  but  there  will  be 
snakes  in  the  woods  if  summer  comes.  It  won't  do 
for  us  to  have  this  thing  all  over  the  land."  Summer, 
if  it  does  bring  mosquitoes,  is  more  desirable  than  are 
greenhouses  for  vegetation,  for  fruit,  or  for  anything  else. 


228  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 


HIGH  FEELING  AND   CLEAR  SEEING. 

Then,  as  to  the  spuriousness  of  conversions.  In  re- 
vivals where  there  has  been  an  ordinary  —  not  an 
extraordinary,  but  simply  an  ordinary  —  degree  of 
care ;  where  there  has  been  a  thorough  wedding  of 
feeling  and  intellection,  —  and  they  are  never  to  be 
divorced,  —  where  the  work  has  been  seriously  entered 
upon  and  judiciously  conducted,  my  impression  is  that 
there  are  fewer  mistakes  made  than  under  any  other 
circumstances.  For  this  reason  :  there  is  never  a  time 
when  the  mind  conceives  so  clearly  as  when  it  is  acting 
under  high  stimulus.  Its  thoughts  are  clearerj  its  in- 
tentions are  better,  its  decisions  are  keener ;  and  if  it 
takes  ground,  it  is  far  more  apt  to  take  ground  by  de- 
cision, that  is,  real  decision,  than  when  it  is  acting  in 
a  low,  lethargic  state.  If  you  want  to  weld  together 
two  pieces  of  iron,  and  you  hammer  them  when  they  are 
cold,  you  will  be  hot  before  you  can  get  them  together 
so  that  they  will  stick.  But  take  them  when  they  are 
hot  and  put  them  together,  and  they  will  be  welded  by 
a  few  blows  so  that  they  will  not  break  asunder.  Get 
men  at  a  welding  heat,  and  then  the  way  of  life  and 
duty  becomes  simple  and  plain.  First  and  last,  the 
operations  of  the  mind  are  more  thorough,  surer, 
healthier,  and  better,  in  a  condition  of  healthful  excite- 
ment than  in  a  low  state  of  feeling.  I  stand  for  life. 
Life  is  health  and  activity. 

RELIGIOUS  INSANITY. 

It  is  said,  "  Are  not  many  persons  made  crazy  by  the 
excitement  under  which  they  are  dealt  with  in  these 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.        229 

revivals  of  religion  ? "  Yes,  some.  There  are  some 
that  would  be  made  crazy  by  any  excitement.  But  I 
have  been  watching  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  dur- 
ing all  the  time  that  I  have  been  there,  now  nearly 
twenty-six  years,  and  I  have  never  had  to  deal  with 
a  person  in  my  congregation  that  was  made  insane 
by  religion ;  and  yet  I  suppose  I  have  conversed  with  a 
thousand  persons  that  were  under  very  deep  religious 
impressions.  But  I  have  seen  man  after  man,  — I  could 
point  to  nearly  twenty  within  my  own  personal  neigh- 
borhood and  knowledge,  —  that  have  been  taken  from 
their  stores,  and  brokers'  shops,  and  other  places  of  that 
kind,  to  the  retreats  for  the  insane,  because  of  the  ex- 
citements of  business.  Twenty  men  may  wear  them- 
selves out  in  business  and  die,  either  from  softening  of 
the  brain  or  hardening  of  the  heart,  and  nobody  says  a 
word  about  that !  But  if,  in  attempting  to  live  a  better 
life,  there  are  one  or  two  among  a  thousand,  so  organ- 
ized that  they  cannot  bear  any  excitement,  and  certain- 
ly not  such  an  excitement  as  religion  naturally  creates, 
these  are  marked  and  held  up  as  scarecrows. 

REVIVALS   RAISE  THE  TONE  OF  CHURCH  PIETY. 

But  it  is  said  that,  by  revivals  of  religion,  the  church 
is  likely  to  be  filled  up  with  unmanageable  masses  of 
men ;  that  revivals,  as  it  were,  bolt  food  into  the  church, 
which,  if  it  were  taken  slowly  and  by  mouthfuls,  mas- 
ticated and  digested,  would  become  real  strength,  but 
now  lies  like  a  burden  in  the  church.  Well,  my  reply 
to  that  is  this:  It  is  conceivable  that,  in  some  cir- 
cumstances, such  a  result  might  follow,  and  especially 
in  communities  that  are  at  a  low  ebb  of  moral  or  intel- 


230          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

lectual  culture.  It  is  quite  possible  that  that  might  be 
the  case  where  the  administration  in  the  church  itself 
is  lax  and  careless.  But  where  the  church  is  intelli- 
gent, and  filled  with  genuine  religious  feeling,  and 
where  there  is  anything  like  a  proper  activity  in 
taking  care  of  the  products  of  the  revivals,  the  mem- 
bership of  the  church  is  raised,  not  lowered,  in  moral 
tone.  When  an  iceberg  breaks  off  from  the  frozen 
rivers  of  the  north  and  comes  sailing  gradually  towards 
the  south,  it  cools  all  the  waters  as  it  goes,  clear  down 
into  the  temperate  latitudes.  Its  influence  is  felt  even 
upon  the  atmosphere.  But  when  southern  waters  go 
pouring  up  the  Gulf  Stream  to  the  north,  they  carry 
heat  that  is  felt  in  all  the  atmosphere  and  in  all  the 
seas  through  the  vast  circuit,  till  it  beats  upon  the 
shores  of  England,  of  Norway,  and  of  Sweden.  It 
carries  with  it  something  of  the  tropic  summer  all  the 
way.  When  we  have  revivals  of  religion  and  receive 
multitudes  into  the  church,  they  are  not  icebergs ;  they 
are  Gulf  Streams  from  the  warm  south  ;  they  bring  into 
the  church,  not  chill,  not  death,  but  life  and  warmth 
and  joy.  These  are  facts  which  I  do  know,  which  are 
on  record ;  facts  about  which  the  experience  of  thou- 
sands of  men  of  different  denominations  and  varying 
temperaments  agrees. 

Revivals  of  religion  are  pre-eminently  desirable,  be- 
cause they  arouse  individuals ;  because  they  carry  up 
those  that  were  Christians  already  to  a  higher  pitch  of 
experience ;  because  they  renovate  the  churches  them- 
selves ;  and  because  they  do  a  work  for  scattered  popu- 
lations in  outlying  communities  which  would  never 
otherwise  have  been  done.  There  are  multitudes  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.        231 

men  that  could  never  get  away  from  the  current  of 
their  business,  that  could  never  face  the  public  senti- 
ment, the  social  current  of  the  community,  unless  the 
community  itself  became  warmed,  leavened,  aglow  with 
moral  influences.  Then  they  would  go  with  the  stream ; 
and  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  in  that  way  come 
into  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  who  never  would  have 
come  into  it  up  stream. 

For  reasons,  then,  of  spiritual  thrift  in  the  individual, 
of  strengthening  the  church  of  humanity  towards  the 
poor,  the  weak,  the  outcast,  I  think  we  have  occasion  to 
bless  God  for  these  outpourings  of  the  Spirit,  that  come 
as  the  wind  comes,  we  know  not  always  whence,  and 
that  go  as  the  wind  goes,  we  know  not  always  whither ; 
but  which,  like  the  wind  in  the  mariner's  sail,  may  be 
so  studied  and  so  used  that  there  shall  be  over  it  a 
substantial  control. 

QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  What  is  your  observation  as  to  the  tendency  of  religious 
revivals  to  the  promotion  of  religious  knowledge  and  the  intellec- 
tual character  of  the  community  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  It  is  precisely  what  you  choose  to 
make  it.  A  revival  of  religion  leaves  the  minds  of  the 
community  open  as  the  furrows  are.  If  you  choose  to 
sow  the  seed  of  knowledge,  it  will  grow  and  thrive 
wonderfully.  If  you  neglect  that,  and  throw  into  the 
furrows  mere  executive  activity,  that  will  be  the  crop. 
Of  all  things  in  this  world,  I  believe  there  is  nothing 
that  is  more  under  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  than  re- 
vivals of  religion.  And,  although  they  are  divine  in 
the  most  important  sense,  yet  they  belong  to  that  side 


232  LECTUllES   ON  PEEACHING. 

of  Divinity  which  lies  nearest  us,  and  are  entirely  sub- 
ject to  our  control  by  the  appropriate  use  of  instru- 
mentality. 

Q.  According  to  your  observation,  under  what  we  recognize  as 
the  revival  influence,  does  n't  a  man  want  to  know  something ;  does 
he  not  hunger  after  some  religious  knowledge  ?  Or  does  the  re- 
vival influence  leave  him  entirely  indifferent  as  to  the  truth  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  If  it  ever  leaves  men  indifferent,  it 
is  somewhere  where  I  have  never  been.  I  have  always 
found  that  not  only  those  that  were  brought  in  became 
hungry  for  increased  knowledge,  but  it  was  peculiarly  so 
with  the  old  stock.  It  was  like  a  stirring  up  of  the  soil 
around  the  roots  of  a  tree ;  you  had  growth  all  around. 

Q.    Is  n't  there  a  tendency  to  reaction  and  increased  coldness  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  If  you  draw  a  line' across  a  man's 
head,  half-way  between  the  top  and  the  base,  every  one 
of  the  faculties  below  it,  when  violently  excited,  tends 
to  reaction.  If  you  take  the  faculties  above,  which  we 
call  moral  or  divine,  if  they  have  anything  like  fair 
usage,  there  is  no  reaction  to  them.  If  you  rouse  men 
up  by  the  basilar  faculties  and  fill  them  with  horror  and 
all  sorts  of  lurid  phantasma,  look  out  for  a  reaction,  — 
you  ought  to  have  one.  But  if  revivals  of  religion 
come  in  with  hope,  with  love,  with  courage,  with  faith, 
—  in  other  words,  if  they  are  brought  in  by  gospel  influ- 
ences in  distinction  from  legal  influences,  —  they  are 
not  subject  to  reaction.  So  far  from  it,  I  think  a  man 
can  work  twenty  years  at  the  very  top  of  all  his  strength, 
if  he  is  working  by  love  and  courage  and  hope.  Those 
things  never  tire  out.  That  is  what  Christ  meant  by 
saying  that  there  shall  be  rivers  of  living  water  in  men. 
They  are  waters  which,  if  a  man  have,  he  does  not 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.        233 

thirst ;  it  is  bread  which,  if  a  man  have,  he  does  not 
hunger.  He  lives  on  it  more  than  forty  days,  —  he  lives 
forty  years. 

Q.  According  to  your  statement,  the  half-educated  ought  to 
have  revivals ;  but  what  shall  we  do  with  the  educated  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  In  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term 
"  education,"  no  man  is  educated  that  is  not  a  Christian. 
A  man  is  not  educated  who  merely  has  his  'knowing 
faculties  whetted,  sharpened.  A  man  is  educated  only 
when  all  parts  of  his  nature  are  brought  up  to  high  con- 
dition. In  our  time  I  do  not  think  any  man  is  educated 
who  has  not  gone  through  the  strata  of  Christianity,  if  I 
might  so  say.  But  a  great  many  men  that  are  intellec- 
tually wise  are  just  as  much  and  as  really  the  subjects 
of  revival  influences  as  anybody.  I  have  seen  men  in 
every  way  my  masters  in  all  intellectual  knowledge, 
who  were  made  like  little  children.  In  my  parishes  in 
the  West,  I  have  seen  men  who  came  out  from  New 
England,  where  they  had  been  for  more  than  forty 
years  in  churches,  —  and  I  think  a  man  that  has  been 
in  a  good  old-fashioned  New  England  church  for  forty 
years,  without  being  converted,  is  like  a  side  of  sole- 
leather  that  has  been  in  a  tan-vat  for  ten  years  ;  he  is 
so  tough  that  if  there  is  anything  that  can  affect  him  it 
must  be  divine,  —  and  yet  I  have  seen  these  men  melt- 
ing down  like  little  children,  and  made  truly  and 
thoroughly  amiable  Christian-  men. 

Some  one  asked  with  reference  to  revivals  in  colleges,  and 
whether  revivals  were  to  be  looked  for  in  connection  with  college 
instruction. 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  do  not  know  why  they  should  not 
be.  If  you  once  get  away  from  the  idea  of  their  awful- 


234          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

ness  ;  if  you  once  get  clear  of  the  notion  that  they  are 
directly  and  solely  acts  of  the  Divine  sovereignty  ;  if 
you  assume  that  they  are  just  as  much  the  subject  of 
human  volition  and  arrangement  as  moral  instruction 
of  other  kinds,  —  then  I  do  not  know  why  revivals  of 
religion  might  not  be  had  in  every  class  in  academies 
and  colleges,  and  that  without  disarrangement  of  affairs. 
A  revival  of  religion  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  a 
religious  feeling  in  its  intense  and  social  form,  so  that  it 
becomes  contagious,  electric.  It  is  not  an  abnormal  or 
unnatural  condition ;  it  is  not  one  hard  to  produce. 

Q.  You  know,  sir,  what  revivals  have  done  for  your  alma  mater, 
for  Williams,  and  for  Yale,  in  former  years.  It  is  said  that,  in  col- 
leges and  universities,  revivals  are  to  be  looked  for  less  frequently 
than  in  the  primitive  state.  Is  that  so,  in  your  observation,  and,  if 
so,  how  do  you  account  for  it  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  will  say,  fairly,  that  I  have  not 
given  to  the  subject  any  particular  investigation.  I 
am  not  aware  of  the  facts.  I  only  know  this,  that  I 
think  there  are  speculative  tendencies  unsettling  the 
minds  of  men  that  preach,  as  well  as  of  men  that  are 
preached  to,  in  our  day.  That  transitional  state  through 
which  we  are  passing  has  rather  broken  the  power  of 
faith.  Men  don't  exactly  know  whether  they  believe 
in  certain  things  or  not.  When  you  have  that  state  of 
mind  in  the  community,  you  will  not  have  revivals.  A 
man  has  got  to  believe.  .  If  he  doubts,  he  is  damned. 
I  should  rather  attribute  the  decadence  or  the  infre- 
quency  of  revivals,  as  a  general  result,  to  the  transitional 
state  of  mind  through  which,  it  seems  to  me,  the  whole 
community  is  going.  It  seems  to  me  the  whole  com- 
munity is  moving  in  the  direction  of  a  revolution. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.        235 

There  are  a  great  many  people  frightened,  a  great  many 
anxious,  and  a  great  many  are  taking  refuge  in  the  old 
forms,  in  order  to  get  away  from  what  seems  to  be  com- 
ing. And  that  unsettled  state  is  not  favorable  for  the 
production  of  positive  results. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  those  lurid  influences  are  relied  upon  too 
extensively  ? 

ME.  BEECHEB.  —  Yes,  sir,  they  are  largely  relied  upon 
by  revivalists.  Most  revivalists  that  I  have  known  are 
men  with  immense  bellies  and  immense  chests  and  big 
under-heads.  They  are  men  that  carry  a  great  deal  of 
personal  magnetism  with  them,  a  sensuous  magnetism, 
too,  and  they  have  a  great  power  of  addressing  the 
under-mind ;  and  they  will  set  feelings  undulating  like 
waves,  and  will  carry  men  on  them.  I  do  not  believe 
you  could  preach  with  effect  to  the  boatmen  and  the 
gamblers  of  Arkansas  and  to  all  the  riffraff  of  the 
community,  those  who  really  live  down  in  the  cellar  of 
their  heads,  unless  you  brought  the  motive  of  fear  to 
bear  upon  them.  If  you  could  in  any  way  bring  the 
higher  feeling  in  their  natures  to  act  in  and  of  itself 
upon  the  lower  ones,  there  would  be  regeneration  in 
that  direction.  But,  ordinarily,  men  that  work  among 
those  classes  are  men  largely  of  the  earth,  blessed  with 
vigorous  circulation  and  great  power  of  throwing  out 
sympathetic  influence  upon  men ;  and  because  they 
preach  largely  to  the  under-class,  men  who  are  moved 
by  conscience  and  by  nothing  else,  they  preach  these 
acerb  and  terrific  doctrines,  and  preach  them  with  all 
the  imagery  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  medi- 
aeval times,  with  hoofs  and  horns,  and  all  manner  of 
exaggerated  statements.  I  have  heard  a  revivalist  in 


236          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

my  pulpit  make  statements  to  my  congregation  that,  if 
I  believed  them  to  be  true,  would  make  me  abandon 
the  Christian  ministry, —  I  was  going  to  say,  abandon 
decent  society  and  forswear  my  race !  The  thing  was 
so  hideous  !  He  stood  there,  —  and  afterwards,  when  I 
was  with  him,  it  appeared  that  he  had  no  compunction, 
—  and  he  began  with  this  declaration,  that  the  mind 
was  capable  of  infinite  development  and  increase  of 
capacity.  Well,  that  is  pure  supposition,  to  start  with. 
But,  assuming  that,  he  went  on  to  say  that  it  would  go 
on  increasing  forever  in  power  of  thought,  and  power  of 
susceptibility,  and  power  of  enjoyment,  and  power  of 
suffering.  That  being  granted,  he  went  on  to  say,  that 
if  men  go  to  hell  they  will  increase  for  ever  and  ever ; 
and  when  he  came  to  the  application,  it  was  this.  "  I 
have  no  doubt,"  said  he,  and  his  great  white  eye 
glistened  as  he  rolled  it  around  the  audience, "  that  there 
are  men  sitting  before  me  who  will  by  and  by  be  in 
hell,  and  will  have  grown  and  grown  and  grown  in  the 
power  of  suffering  until  they  will  have  reached  a  point 
at  which  they  will  suffer  more  in  a  single  minute  than 
all  the  suffering  of  all  the  damned  from  the  begin- 
ning of  creation  to  the  present  hour ! "  There  was  his 
logical  inference ;  and  then  he  multiplied  it  and  went 
on,  saying  that  there  would  be  multitudes  and  multi- 
tudes of  them  there,  while  angels  were  singing  glory  to 
God,  and  while  God  was  looking  over  into  the  pit  and 
seeing  that  terrific  scene,  enjoying  himself  ;  he  wanted 
me  to  believe  that,  and  then  worship  God !  Now,  where 
you  deal  with  men  in  communities  in  that  way,  it  is 
you  who  are  to  blame ;  for  the  reactions  are  something 
very  terrific  in  revivals. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EEVIVALS.        237 

Q.   Is  n't  that  the  style  which  reaches  children,  also  ? 

ME.  BEECHES.  —  It  reaches  them,  —  hideously,  too. 
I  remember,  in  my  childhood,  when  a  minister  came  to 
my  father's  house,  I  was  like  a  thermometer.  You  can- 
not open  the  stove  door  that  the  thermometer  does  not 
feel  it  instantly ;  and  so  it  goes  up  and  down,  as  sensi- 
tive as  it  can  be.  My  spiritual  nature  was  just  as  sen- 
sitive to  religious  impulses.  I  was  always  plunged  into 
the  depth  of  despair  about  my  sins,  always  in  a  state 
of  awful  anxiety  to  be  converted  and  to  have  the  evi- 
dence of  it  in  myself.  This  man,  whoever  he  was,  — 
his  name  has  gone  from  me,  —  took  my  brother  Charles 
and  me,  and  began  to  tell  us  stories  about  the  Devil  and 
hell,  until  I  had  got  into  that  state  that  I  now  wonder 
I  did  not  go  into  convulsions.  It  was  hideous.  If  he 
had  put  me  on  a  hot  gridiron  and  left  me  there  ten. 
minutes,  I  could  have  got  over  that,  but  this  soul-broil- 
ing, this  torturing  a  little  child's  sensitive  nature  in 
that  way,  without  presenting  any  thought  of  mercy  or 
love  or  goodness  or  Christ  Jesus,  — •  why  !  the  man  was 
a  heathen,  only  he  had  a  Christian  coat  on  him  ! 

Q.   Do  you  believe  in  preaching  to  flee  the  wrath  to  come  ? 

ME.  BEECHEE.  —  Certainly  I  do. 

Q.  Did  you  mean  to  state  that,  in  preaching  to  those  lower 
classes,  you  have  to  use  appeals  to  their  lower  nature  ? 

ME.  BEECHEE.  —  I  state  this  :  that  any  man  who  will 
begin,  in  any  community,  preaching  to  those  who  are 
morally  dead  and  uncultured,  will  generally  find  that 
he  has  to  use  far  more  acerb  and  violent  presentations 
than  he  will  afterwards.  And,  if  he  preaches  success- 
fully, and  preaches  there  for  five  years  or  ten  years,  he 


238          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

will  find,  as  his  preaching  carries  people  up  to  higher 
levels  in  their  own  nature,  that  the  same  motives  will 
not  any  longer  produce  the  same  effect ;  that  he  has  got 
to  go  higher  in  his  motives,  and,  preaching  on  that 
higher  level,  he  will  yet  go  to  a  still  higher  one.  He  is 
carried,  all  the  way  along,  to  higher  and  higher  classes 
of  motive.  My  own  preaching  in  the  East  is  not  at  all 
what  it  was  in  the  West.  It  is  addressed  to  a  totally 
different  class  and  totally  different  conditions  of  society. 

Q.  Should  the  pastor  allow  evangelists  to  take  charge  of  a 
revival  and  assume  control? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  That  is  a  very  large  question.  I 
should  never  allow  any  evangelist  to  take  charge  of 
any  meetings  in  my  church.  But  if  he  is  stronger  than 
you  are,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  You  go 
out  now  and  look  at  the  white-oak  trees,  and  you  will 
see  that  they  have  held  on  to  their  leaves  all  the  winter 
long,  just  as  many  churches  hold  on  to  old,  dry  minis- 
ters. And  you  will  see  that  the  moment  the  sap  begins 
to  start  in  those  trees  and  grow,  every  one  of  those  old 
leaves  will  go.  So  with  many  and  many  a  man  who 
has  pastoral  charge  of  a  church ;  the  moment  the  church 
begins  to  swell,  off  he  will  go.  It  is  a  very  dangerous 
thing  to  have  a  revival  of  religion,  unless  a  man  is 
wide-awake,  useful,  and  active  in  his  church.  And  it  is 
a  very  dangerous  thing  for  a  man  to  build  a  church 
edifice  unless  he  is  a  very  able,  powerful  man.  A  new 
church  has  often  unsettled  a  minister.  The  impulse 
that  gives  vitality,  ambition,  and  movement  to  the 
church,  —  a  man  must  keep  ahead  of  it;  if  he  does  not, 
he  will  have  to  go. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVALS.        239 

Q.  Do  you  think  that  preaching  on  doctrinal  points  is  deaden- 
ing in  a  religious  community? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  if  a  man  deals  too  much  in  it, 
it  is  deadening;  it  is  mephitic  gas.  If  you  want  to 
speculate,  speculate  moderately,  but  don't  get  into  an 
eddy,  a  whirlpool,  and  go  round  and  round,  and  shut 
yourself  up  to  that  thing.  If  a  man  wants  to  study, 
let  him  keep  that  up,  but  keep  close  to  folks,  and  feel 
the  reality  of  human  life,  the  need  of  men.  I  am  just 
as  subject  to  scepticism  as  any  man  could  possibly  be, 
all  the  time ;  and  I  have  kept  my  head  above  water  in 
a  real,  living  faith  in  God  and  humanity,  by  working 
on  the  living,  palpitating  heart  of  men.  Take  a  living 
soul  into  your  bosom,  and  it  will  give  you  life. 

Q.  Do  you  think  it  possible  for  a  man  to  be  converted  under 
the  influence  of  fear,  unless  that  fear  goes  so  far  as  to  secure  a 
knowledge  of  the  love  of  God  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  make  just  the  same  distinction 
between  a  man's  being  a  religious  man  and  a  Christian 
man,  as  I  do  between  a  shrub  in  leaf  and  a  shrub  in 
blossom.  I  do  not  think  that  more  than  half  the 
people  that  come  into  our  churches  are  anything  more 
than  religious ;  they  are  converted  to  religion,  but  not 
to  Christianity.  They  are  converted  to  the  sense  of 
duty,  to  the  will  that  means  to  do  right,  but  they  are 
not  converted  to  that  faith  that  works  by  love. 

To  excite  fear  is  to  produce  life  and  motion.  It  is 
the  initial  step  to  arouse  a  man  to  that  state  by  which 
you  can  carry  him  forward  to  higher  states.  But  I  do 
not  think  that  fear,  in  and  of  itself,  ever  wrought  love 
or  ever  will  work  love. 


IX. 

REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO  LAW. 

ALBERT  BARNES,  in  speaking  on  the  sub- 
ject of  revivals  of  religion,  says,  "  The  phe- 
nomenon itself  we  regard  as  the  work  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  alike  beyond  human  power 
to  produce  it  and  to  control  it."  And  then  he  quotes 
the  passage,  "  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and 
thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell 
whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth :  so  is  every  one 
that  is  born  of  the  Spirit " ;  an  illustration  which 
was  very  pertinent  before  the  establishment  of  the 
Meteorological  Bureau  ;  but,  unfortunately  for  a  literal 
application  of  it  now,  we  know  where  the  wind  comes 
from  and  very  nearly  where  it  is  going  to.  Still,  the 
figure  is  just  as  good,  and  the  truth  is  more  than  all 
figure,  and  that  remains  constant.  Now,  it  would  be 
fair  to  say  that  this  'language  admits  of  two  construc- 
tions. One  of  these  would  equally  apply  to  all  phe-- 
nomena  of  the  human  mind,  —  thought,  feeling,  voli- 
tion. The  other  construction  would  put  all  the  history 
which  is  developed  under  the  supposed  personal  agency 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  of  God  outside  of  the  pale  of  scien- 


KEVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW.  241 

tific  observation,  of  reasoning,  of  deduction.  It  is  in 
fact,  I  suppose,  in  that  place  that  Mr.  Barnes  would 
have  put  revivals  of  religion.  I  suppose  he  would  have 
said  that  all  nature,  meaning  thereby  the  physical  uni- 
verse, is  governed  by  laws,  and  that  by  the  study  of 
these  we  may  understand  and  control  them ;  but  that 
God's  work  in  the  human  soul  is  secret,  .mysterious, 
without  law  known  to  men,  unstudiable ;  that  it  de- 
pends upon  the  sovereignty  of  God ;  that  God  works  as 
he  will,  meaning  by  "  as  he  will,"  that  he  works  with- 
out any  sense  of  law  or  any  definite  or  permanent  chan- 
nel ;  and  that,  therefore,  spiritual  phenomena  stand  out- 
side of  mental  philosophy,  if  by  mental  philosophy  we 
understand  the  exposition  of  the  great  natural  laws 
which  regulate  human  thought  and  human  feeling. 
This,  I  know,  was  the  feeling  that  prevailed  in  my 
childhood.  I  know  that  such  men  as  Dr.  Heman  Hum- 
phrey and  Professor  Edward  Hitchcock,  for  moral  com- 
pleteness and  for  sturdy  and  rugged  understanding,  — 
the  latter  for  scientific  attainment  also,  in  his  own  day, — 
were  not  to  be  despised.  Yet  I  recollect  going  down  to 
Dr.  Humphrey's  under  a  state  of  prodigious  mental 
excitement  in  my  own  behalf,  and  asking  for  some 
instruction,  that  I  might  ease  myself  of  my  burden 
and  be  brought  to  a  saving  knowledge  of  Christ ;  and 
he  said  to  me,  "  My  young  friend,  you  are  manifestly 
under  the  strivings  of  God's  Spirit,  and  I  dare  not 
touch  the  ark  with  profane  hand.  The  Spirit  of 
God,  when  he  strives  with  a  man,  is  his  own  best 
interpreter."  And  so  he  left  me  to  the  work  of  the 
Spirit.  Whereas,  if  I  had  had  but  a  very  little  clear 
instruction,  it  would  have  saved  me  years  of  anxiety, 


242          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

and,  at  times,  of  positive  anguish,  for  want  of  knowl- 
edge. The  impression  in  Dr.  Humphrey's  mind  was, 
that  the  work  of  the  Spirit  was  of  a  kind  so  sacred,  so 
apart  from  all  law  and  exposition,  that  it  was  not  safe 
for  a  man  to  undertake  to  interpret  it.  I  recollect,  in 
a  meeting  held  during  the  same  revival,  going  myself,  — 
although  I  was  then  a  member  of  the  church,  —  to  be 
conversed  with  by  Professor  Hitchcock.  He  came  clown 
on  the  side  of  the  house  on  which  I  sat,  until  he  nearly 
reached  my  seat ;  then,  turning  from  me,  he  walked  back 
to  the  desk  and  said,  substantially,  "I  see  that  this 
room  is  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God.  I  am  awed  and 
subdued.  I  dare  not  attempt  to  mingle  human  wis- 
dom with  the  workings  of  the  Spirit  of  God."  Now, 
the  reverence,  the  humility,  and  the  childlikeness  of 
the  man  were  admirable ;  yet  I  cannot  but  think  the 
whole  judgment  and  feeling  in  respect  to  the  work  of 
the  Spirit  were  wrong,  and  not  only  inconsistent  with 
the  truth,  but  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  administra- 
tion, in  other  departments,  of  both  Professor  Hitchcock 
and  Dr.  Humphrey  themselves.  They  were  perpetually 
laying  the  foundations  of  procedure  in  matters  that  be- 
longed, according  to  their  own  definitions  and  showing, 
to  the  province  of  spiritual  enlightenment.  They  did 
prepare  with  great  skill ;  they  did  lay  out  paths  where 
men  might  walk",  expecting  certain  results  to  follow. 
They  did,  in  a  latent  way,  —  in  a  way,  perhaps,  not  .so 
clearly  announced  as  we  enunciate  it, —  they  did  imply, 
in  their  other  spheres  of  labor,  that  cause  and  effect 
ruled  in  spiritual  things,  as  in  intellectual  and  material 
things,  and  that  the  foundation  of  knowledge  was  the 
study  of  the  methods  of  the  Divine  economy,  so  that 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  243 

men  might  co-operate  with  God.  And  that  study,  by 
implication,  requires  that  we  should  believe  the  meth- 
ods by  which  God  acts  to  be  stated,  to  be  constant. 
Not  but  that  there  is  a  Divine  Spirit  working  according 
to  its  own  free  will.  So,  also,  do  I  work  according  to 
my  free  will,  and  here,  on  you,  turning  this  way,  or  that 
way,  or  the  other ;  but  I  always,  when  freest,  act  along 
the  line  of  certain  definite  mental  peculiarities  in  my- 
self, according  to  the  law  of  the  structure  of  my  mind, 
and  always  produce  impressions  on  you,  according  to 
the  working  of  the  laws  in  your  mind.  And  yet  I  am 
free.  I  am  free  to  reason,  to  appeal,  to  persuade,  to 
pour  one  or  another  motive,  by  sympathy,  upon  the 
congregation.  Freedom  does  not  imply  that  one  does 
not  move  along  traveled  roads  ;  does  not  imply  caprice, 
fitfulness,  and  perpetual  unlikeness  of  method  to 
method.  The  freedom  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  free- 
dom of  God's  will,  does  not  require  that  he  shall 
never  do  twice  alike,  so  that  we  cannot  follow  his 
footsteps,  or  know  how  he  works,  as  well  as  wliat. 

I  remember  that  in  the  earlier  revivals  —  the  revivals 
of  my  childhood  —  nothing  was  so  impressive  as  Mr. 
Nettleton's  constant,  emphatic,  and,  I  may  say,  awful 
recognition  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  He  so  represented 
the  Spirit  of  God  as  to  make  everybody  quake  in  his 
shoes..  I  think  he  had  the  art  of  inspiring  fear,  with- 
out denunciation,  in  a  very  much  higher  way  than  usu- 
ally belongs  to  preaching  of  the  same  general  class. 
But  then  his  representation  of  the  Divine  Spirit  was, 
that  God  was  a  jealous  God,  a  sensitive  Being.  And 
he  would  whisper  this  utterance,  "  Take  care,  that  you 
do  not  grieve  the  Spirit  of  God  ! "  Why,  I  felt  like  a 


244          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

man  walking  in  the  midst  of  torpedoes,  —  I  did  not 
know  where  they  were  ;  but  I  might  step  on  one,  and 
away  I  should  go  !  It  was  a  vague  terror.  I  was  full 
of  fear ;  afraid  to  go  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  forward 
or  backward,  up  or  down.  I  felt  that  the  whole  air  was 
full  of  a  sensitive,  jealous  spirit  that  was  ready  to  smite 
down,  I  knew  not  when,  or  how,  or  where.  I  only 
felt,  in  a  general  way,  -that  I  was  a  sinner,  and  that 
God  was  ready  to  strike  me,  and  that  if  I  could  not  get 
under  the  lightning-rod,  where  the  flash  would  be  car- 
ried off,  I  should  be  gone.  It  produced  an  intense 
moral  nervousness ;  but,  in  a  sensitive  nature  such  as 
mine  was,  it  overacted.  An  obtuse  nature  it  would 
hardly  bring  up  to  the  point ;  but  in  others  it  would 
overwork,  and  produce  that  kind  of  curdling  of  the 
blood  out  of  which  comes  no  good,  but  much  mischief. 

THE  DIVINE   SPIRIT  NOT  CAPRICIOUS. 

Now,  in  regard,  not  simply  to  revivals  of  religion, 
which  I  believe  to  be  the  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit, 
but  to  the  whole  department  of  spiritual  experiences, 
I  say  they  are  in  analogy  with  mental  experiences ; 
not  that  they  are  on  the  same  level,  but  that  the  ad- 
ministration of  God  over  the  human  soul  is  in  analogy 
with  his  administration  over  the  lower  or  physical  ele- 
ments in  man,  the  intermediate  emotions  of  the  social 
and  the  intellectual  processes.  Spiritual  developments 
are,  all  of  them,  under  law,  administered  by  law,  as 
much  as  any  other  part  of  nature,  and  to  be  studied, 
therefore,  as  we  study  every  other  department  of  human 
life.  And  in  regard  to  the  moral  elements,  all  the 
graces  of  the  Spirit  and  all  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  be- 


EEVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  245 

long  to  education.  They  are  to  be  developed  by  educa- 
tion, just  as  much  as  every  other  part  of  the  mind.  The 
belief  in  the  immediate  presence  and  efficacy  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  belief  that 
its  imrnediateness  and  efficacy  are  exercised  through 
definite  laws,  with  a  constancy  that  makes  those  laws 
comprehensible.  It  is  in  the  possibility  of  this  definite 
knowledge  that  the  foundation  is  laid  for  a  wise  pro- 
cedure on  the  part  of  the  minister  and  the  members  of 
the  congregation. 

Once,  this  would  have  been  a  very  audacious  avowal, 
—  I  do  not  know  but  it  is  yet.  That  is  to  say,  it  may 
be  considered  audacious  to  preach  that  men,  when  they 
neeu.  humility,  meekness,  rapture,  ecstasy,  should  be  put 
upon  seeking  these  things  precisely  on  the  same  general 
methods  as  when  they  want  the  knowledge  of  criticism, 
the  knowledge  of  history,  or  intellectual  development 
in  any  direction.  Suppose,  when  a  father  brought  his 
boy  to  the  Sheffield  school,  in  order  that  he  might  be 
trained  in  engineering,  the  child  should  say,  "  I  find  it 
exceedingly  difficult  to  get  algebra  and  geometry  into 
my  head  " ;  and  his  father  should  reply,  "  My  son,  you 
do  not  spend  enough  time  in  your  closet ;  you  ought  to 
pray  more  :  that  would  open  your  mind  to  geometry ! " 
I  should  not  blame  a  father  for  saying  to  his  son, 
"  Pray  for  God's  help  in  studying  geometry."  But,  sup- 
pose the  father  meant  to  imply  that  that  was  the  way 
to  learn  algebra ;  that  algebra  would  come  as  the  fruit 
of  prayer ;  and  that  if  you  only  humbled  yourself  and 
prayed  enough,  and  were  in  an  open  and  receiving 
mood,  by  and  by  would  come  in  algebra  !  Yet  that  is 
about  the  way  in  which  many  people  pray  for  spiritual 


246          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

states.  They  think  that  if  they  withhold  themselves 
from  known  sins,  if  they  put  themselves  in  a  waiting- 
position,  if  they  open  their  minds  freely,  and  then  pray 
for  meekness  and  humility,  they  will  receive  those  con- 
ditions. Some  seem  to  think  that  such  things  are  kept 
already  prepared,  and  that  when  one  is  in  the  right 
state,  or  has  the  right  temperament,  or  the  right  consti- 
tution, and  has  prayed  enough,  some  humility  is  taken 
and  given  to  him ;  that  it  comes  down  to  him  in  some 
way  unsearchable  and  unknowable. 

I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  be  understood  as  set- 
ting aside,  a  whit,  the  faith  of  the  church  in  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Divine  Spirit,  in  its  universality,  in  its 
speciality  and  personality,  —  I  mean  in  the  sense  of 
acting  upon  individual  persons.  I  believe  it  all,  heart- 
ily. I  believe  it  a  good  deal  more  than  I  should  if 
I  were  shut  up  to  the  old  theory.  I  regard  laws  as 
so  many  limbs  in  which,  in  this  opaque  and  material 
world,  and  in  that  other  unexplored  •sv.orld  within  us,  I 
may  trace  the  form  of  God.  I  think  we  never  come  so 
near  to  God  as  when  we  are  in  the  immediate  recogni- 
tion of  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  in  regard  to 
the  operations  of  the  outward  world,  or  of  the  inward 
world.  And  by  believing  that  all  moral  results  are 
conformable  to  the  established  constitution  of  things, 
we  do  not  obliterate  faith  in  the  Divine  Spirit,  but 
only  mark  out  the  ways  through  which  experience  and 
observation  teach  us  the  Divine  Spirit  acts.  Its  action 
is  universal.  It  is  not,  I  think,  this  secret,  subtle  sub- 
stance by  which  men  themselves  are  vital,  by  which 
they  come  above  the  line  and  level  of  physical  and 
material  organizations  into  that  state  which  has  never 


EEVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  247 

yet  been  explored,  whose  metes  and  bounds  no  sur- 
veyor can  ever  measure  by  chain  or  rule,  whose  quality 
no  alembic  and  no  analysis  can  ever  discover,  —  that 
yet  unknown  thing  called  mind.  I  believe  that  when 
we  come  into  that  state  in  which  this  begins  to  efflor- 
esce, we  enter  the  region  where  the  Divine  Spirit, 
universal,  stimulating  as  the  sun  is  throughout  the 
hemispheres,  exerts  its  power ;  that  the  soul  is  waked 
into  life  by  the  Divine  Light,  and  that  our  higher  rap- 
tures, rulable  according  to  law,  according  to  definite 
exposition  of  law,  are  yet  vitalized  and  sublimated  by 
the  direct  impact  of  the  Divine  mind.  If  there  is  such 
a  thing  conceivable  as  one  mind  being  brooded  by  an- 
other, one  mind  resting  upon  another,  such  I  believe  to 
be,  at  least  in  figure,  the  method  in  which  the  human 
mind  is  awakened  and  stimulated  by  the  Divine  mind. 
What  I  plead  for  is,  that  the  gifts  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
are  not  exceptional,  or  capricious,  without  rule,  with- 
out definite  purpose ;  but  that  they  are  to  be  just  as 
definitely  expected  as  the  results  which  the  farmer 
seeks  when  he  sows  his  seed.  Although  God  is  the 
God  of  nature,  and  although  all  the  processes  of  nature 
are  under  Divine  sovereignty  and  power,  yet,  in  that 
realm  there  is  a  definiteness  of  expectation  which  is 
justified  by  experience.  All  men  think  that  when  you 
educate  a  person  physically,  you  are  to  do  so,  not  without 
a  belief  that  God  helps  all  things  and  is  everywhere,  and 
everywhere  operative,  but  yet  with  a  definite  purpose 
to  make  them  stand,  walk,  throw  their  bodies  into  pos- 
tures of  grace,  and  so  discipline  themselves  to  strength. 
We  teach  the  hand  all  manner  of  manipulation  and 
skill,  and  feel  that  there  is  no  irreverence  in  saying 


248          LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

we  do  this  by  natural  law.  So  we  teach  children  a 
thousand  intermediate  disciplines  of  affection,  of  love, 
of  taste,  of  obligingness,  of  self-denial,  —  a  thousand 
things  that  they  must  or  must  not  do,  in  order  to  perfect 
themselves.  In  other  words,  we  perfect  the  lower  part 
of  men's  natures  by  education.  That  we  do  this  with 
the  intellect,  every  one  knows.  Beading  and  writing 
may  "come  by  nature,"  but  we  always  supplement 
them  by  teaching,  and  act  in  the  schools  as  though  the 
intellect  had  certain  laws,  as  though  there  were  appro- 
priate methods  of  cultivating  it. 

REVIVALS  UNDER  THE  LAW  OF  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT. 

But  now,  when  we  come  to  religion,  men  fly  the  track. 
They  seem  to  think,  "  Here  is  vagueness ;  here  is  a 
realm  too  sacred  to  suppose  that  law  operates  in  it," 
and  it  is  just  there  that  I  say,  in  respect  emphatically 
to  revivals  of  religion,  that  they  are  conformable  to  law, 
and  that  that  conformableness  to  law  is  in  the  founda- 
tion of  education  and  knowledge,  in  the  production 
of  emotion,  or  in  the  production  and  conduct  of  -all 
spiritual  processes.  You  will  see,  therefore,  that  the 
ridicule  which  men  heap  upon  the  efforts  made  for  the 
promotion  of  revivals  is  altogether  without  just  foun- 
dation. They  say,  "Mr.  Jackson  has  gone  down  to 
Mill  Hollow  to  get  up  a  revival,  I  understand " ;  and 
everybody  laughs,  and  feels  that  that  man  is  put  down. 
But  suppose  I  were  to  say, "  Mr.  Jackson  has  gone  down 
to  Mill  Hollow  to  hold  a  temperance-meeting,  and  to 
try  to  get  up  a  public  sentiment  on  that  subject." 
"  Very  good ;  they  need  it  down  there,  and  I  hope  lie 
will  succeed."  Suppose  I  were  to  say,  "  Down  in  Mill 


KEVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO  LAW.  249 

Hollow,  I  understand,  there  are  a  hundred  children 
who  have  not  been  to  school,  on  an  average,  one 
month  in  three  years;  and  Parson  Jackson  has  gone 
down  to  stir  the  people  up  on  the  subject  of  education, 
and  try  to  get  up  a  public  spirit  on  the  subject."  No- 
body would  laugh  at  that.  But  if  I  say,  "  Parson 
Jackson  has  gone  down  to  Mill  Hollow  to  try  to  get  up 
a  religious  feeling,  a  revival,"  then  everybody  laughs 
and  scoffs.  This  could  not  be  but  for  that  background 
of  impression,  that  a  revival  of  religion  is  a  thing  so 
absolutely  above  human  knowledge,  and  depends  upon 
such  capricious  conditions  in  the  Divine  Spirit,  that 
human  effort  in  that  direction  is  absolutely  ridiculous. 
If  I  should  say,  "  Parson  Jackson  has  gone  over  to 
the  White  Mountains  to  try  to  get  up  a  tornado,"  they 
would  laugh  ;  or,  if  I  should  say,  "  Parson  Jackson  has 
taken  a  lever  and  gone  east  to  try  to  pry  the  sun  up  in 
the  morning,"  they  would  laugh  :  because  these  things 
are  known  to  be  outside  of  human  power.  But  to  say 
that  a  man  is  going  to  stir  up  the  community  in  behalf 
of  railroads,  causes  no  one  to  laugh.  To  get  up  a  refor- 
mation in  the  matter  of  gambling  or  drinking,  is  looked 
upon  as  normal  and  right ;  but  to  stir  men  up  in  behalf 
of  the  whole  extent  of  their  moral  character  and  life, 
—  is  not  that  normal  also  ?  Is  there  anything  ridiculous 
in  that  ? 

WHAT  IS   NATURE? 

It  is  such  statements,  however,,  that  many  feel  to 

be  an  upheaval  of  the  foundations,  and   a  departure 

from    the   faith   of  the   fathers.     For  example,   some 

will  ask  you,  "  Does  not  such  a  view  as  this  confound 

11* 


250          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

nature  and  grace  ?  Is  it  not  bringing  all  gracious 
operations  down  to  the  level  of  nature?"  What  is 
nature,  then  ?  Is  it  a  flat  plane  of  matter  ?  —  some- 
thing that  lies  at  the  very  bottom  of  God's  creation,  and 
is  on  the  whole  very  unworthily  there  ?  Many  people 
talk  as  if  nature  were  the  lowest  and  the  last  of  things. 
And  therefore  they  speak  about  reducing  a  thing  to 
the  level  of  nature.  What  is  nature  ?  Everything  that 
God  ever  organized  into  being  and  maintained,  is 
nature.  The  rock,  the  soil,  the  herb,  the  insect,  the 
animal,  man,  in  body  and  in  soul ;  all  the  way  from 
the  lowest  inorganic  rock  up  to  the  most  inspired 
genius  in  humanity,  all  that  long  line  upward,  is  through 
the  realm  of  nature.  Nature  does  not  wait,  either, 
on  this  side  of  death  ;  for  when  we  shall  break  through, 
—  not  by  far  traveling,  but  by  dropping  opacity  and 
the  cumbering  flesh,  —  and  stand  in  the  spiritual  light 
with  spirits  that  are  now  perhaps  nearer  to  us  than  a 
hand's-breadth,  —  when  we  shall  come  into  the  other 
life,  still  it  will  be  nature,  as  I  believe.  For  nature  is 
all  heaven,  and  all  earth,  and  all  the  universe  of  God. 
Wherever,  along  the  lines  of  space,  the  word  of  God  has 
thrilled  and  something  has  happened,  there  is  nature ; 
and  nothing  is  or  can  be  that  does  not  circle  into  that. 
To  reduce  things  to  the  level  of  nature,  is  to  reduce 
them  to  the  level  of  God,  which  ought  not  to  be  a  very 
great  degradation. 

PHYSICAL  NATURE   NOT  IGNOBLE. 

But  there  are  two  things  to  be  thought  -of,  even  in 
respect  to  that  use  of  the  term  which  men  have  been 
accustomed  to  make.  I  have  not  such  an  ignoble 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  251 

sense  of  nature,  —  meaning  by  that  simply  the  econ- 
omy of  the  physical  world  round  about  me,  —  as  to 
believe  that  a  spiritual  intuition  or  emotion  is  de- 
graded by  being  spoken  of  in  the  same  connection. 
There  are  a  great  many  men,  acting  under  the  old  theo- 
logical heresy  of  the  intrinsic  sinfulness  of  matter,  who 
curse  material  nature,  as  though  God  had  had  nothing 
to  do  in  the  making  and  sustaining  of  it.  I  do  not  con- 
sider that  unthinking  matter  is  to  be  ranked  or  classed 
with  sentient  matter,  but  this  I  think  :  The  heavens  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God,  and  the  earth  shows  his  handi- 
work. Oh,  there  is  not  a  place  in  the  old  Litchfield 
house  where  I  was  born  that  is  not  dear  to  my  eye !  I 
go  back  there  sometimes ;  and  the  last  time  I  went  I 
chose  not  to  go  in  the  glare  of  day,  they  had  so  changed 
the  place.  But  I  stood  at  twilight,  when  just  enough 
darkness  had  come  down  to  hide  the  changes,  and 
yet  there  was  light  enough  to  throw  up  above  the 
horizon  and  against  the  sky  the  substance  and  form  of 
the  old  house.  It  was  full,  to  my  thought,  of  my  father 
and  my  mother,  of  my  sisters  and  brothers.  My  heart 
blessed  the  old  house  for  all  that  it  had  had  in  it ;  for 
all  the  care  that  it  had  had,  for  all  its  sweet  associa- 
tions. It  was  stained  through  with  soul  color.  It  was 
full,  as  it  were,  with  the  blood  of  life. 

The  mother  who,  by  reason  of  increasing  wealth,  is 
selling  off  the  old  furniture  as  she  moves  out  of  her 
cottage  into  her  mansion,  sells  everything  cheerfully  till 
she  comes  to  the  cradle.  "  No,  my  dear,  no  ;  you  never 
shall  sell  that."  What  is  it  ?  It  is  an  old,  rude,  heavy, 
clumsy  thing,  which  rolls,  when  you  rock  it,  like  a  farm- 
er's wagon  going  over  bridges,  and  makes  all  sorts  of 


252          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

noises.  But  there  is  no  money  that  can  buy  that. 
There  her  seven  children  have  lain ;  there  she  has  had 
songs  and  prayers ;  there  have  been  tears  and  heart  ex- 
periences unutterable,  —  and  they  have  sanctified  the 
cradle.  The  globe  on  which  the  foot  of  Christ  has 
trod  cannot  be  ignoble  to  me.  The  heavens  and  the 
earth  are  full  of  God  to  me.  There  is  not  a  bird  that 
sings,  there  is  not  a  flower  that  blossoms,  there  is  not  a 
lichen  that  colors  the  rock,  there  is  not  a  thing  that 
happens  in  the  world,  that  I  do  not  say  to  myself, 
"That  is  God's  thought  and  matter."  The  world  is 
embossed  and  embroidered  and  filled  full ;  it  records 
the  tastes,  the  habitudes,  the  thoughts,  the  feelings,  of 
my  God.  Matter  by  association  becomes  sacred  to  me. 
If  you  hear  men  talk  about  degrading  things  to  nature 
and  to  matter,  say  to  them :  The  right  way  is  to  level 
up,  not  to  level  down.  Carry  the  idea  of  nature  and 
of  matter  up  so  high  that  it  will  not  be  a  degrading 
association. 

When  men  say,  therefore,  that  to  declare  the  work 
of  God  in  revivals  of  religion  is  entirely  compatible 
with  the  system  of  moral  laws,  and  the  results  which 
are  the  works  of  the  Divine  Spirit  actually  producible 
by  taking  advantage  of  these  laws,  —  when  men  say 
that  this  is  to  reduce  grace  to  the  level  of  natural  law, 
I  think  they  talk  either  on  a  false  system,  or  without 
knowing  what  they  are  saying.  For  it  is  no  degrada- 
tion, any  more  than  it  is  a  degradation  for  me  to  say 
that  men  learn  refinement,  intellectual  culture,  taste, 
beauty,  or  any  other  thing,  by  the  application  of  suit- 
able laws.  It  is  undertaking  'to  find  out  what  God  did, 
and  thought,  and  meant,  and  to  follow  that. 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  253 

Then  it  is  said,  "  Does  it  not  dishonor  God  ?  Does 
it  not  take  from  him  his  prerogatives  ?  Is  it  not  a 
vain  assumption  on  the  part  of  man,  that  he  can  do 
what  it  is  the  province  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  do? 
Can  man  convert  himself  ?  Is  not  conversion  the  work 
of  God  directly  ? "  Admit  that  it  is  —  which  I  do  not 
admit  —  the  sole  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit ;  this  would 
not  interfere  with  the  ground  of  moral  education,  and 
would  not  touch  the  ground  on  which  I  place  revivals 
of  religion.  Although  some  specific  parts  of  any  gen- 
eral system  may  be  more  immediately  personal  and  ab- 
solutely divine  in  their  causation,  it  does  not  affect  the 
fact  that  the  system  itself  may  be  a  mixture  of  divine 
and  human  volition.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  every 
element  that  goes  to  the  constitution  of  a  revival,  and 
every  element,  too,  that  goes  to  right  teaching,  and 
right  training,  and  the  production  of  all  kinds  of  Chris- 
tian feeling  in  a  church,  —  every  one  of  these  will  one 
day  be  solvable  ;  they  will  come  within  the  circuit  of 
human  knowledge ;  and  we  shall  profit  just  as  much 
by  this  knowledge  as  we  have  profited  by  knowledge  in 
the  whole  economy  of  society.  Do  not  men  live  bet- 
ter, are  they  not  wiser  and  better,  for  having  studied 
out  those  phenomena  which  by  the  old  Hebrews  were 
supposed  to  be  the  immediate  results  of  Divine  power  ? 
God  spoke  to  the  Hebrews,  when  it  thundered.  We  do 
not  any  more  suppose  that  thunder  is  the  voice  of  God. 
God  made  grass  to  grow,  as  it  were,  by  touching  it  with 
his  finger.  We  know  that  grass  grows  through  the  im- 
pulse of  the  Divine  Spirit,  but  it  is  the  Divine  Spirit 
sent  through  various  channels.  Are  we  worse  off  for 
the  knowledge  that  the  Divine  agency  is  both  imme- 


254  LECTURES   ON  PREACHING. 

diate  and  remote  ?  So  it  is  said  that  God,  in  old 
times,  put  it  into  the  hearts  of  men  to  do  a  thousand 
things  with  irresistible  impulse,  using  them  as  ma- 
chines, starting  them  as  an  engineer  starts  his  cylinder, 
setting  it  going  and  pumping  right  and  left.  That  used 
to  be  substantially  the  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Spirit  acted  upon  the  minds  of  men. 

THE   SCIENCE   OF    RELIGION. 

Now,  more  and  more  is  the  study  of  art  and  science 
making  man  powerful,  facilitating  his  efforts,  raising 
the  tone  of  society,  stimulating  general  civilization. 
So,  I  believe,  one  day,  piety  itself  will  be  carried  to  a 
higher  level ;  it  will  be  purified,  it  will  be  systematized, 
it  will  be  better  studied,  more  easily  understood,  less 
fitful,  less  disposed  to  moods.  The  Spirit  of  God  is 
bringing  his  church  into  that  higher  state  in  which 
religion  also  becomes  a  part  of  science.  That  is  to  say, 
the  way  of  God  in  religion  will  be  made  known  to  us 
just  as  God  is  made  known  to  us  in  physical  and  in- 
tellectual affairs.  In  that  day,  I  believe  we  shall  have 
a  higher  state  of  piety,  for  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
church  of  God  has  more  than  come  to  its  blossom,  if  to 
that.  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  going  to  die  under  the 
rocks.  I  think  that  it  is  going  to  be  purged  out  by  the 
life  of  science.  I  believe  that  many  of  the  systems 
now  held  will  change  the  forms  and  the  economics 
of  civilization ;  but  the  great  substance  of  religious 
life  is  so  true,  it  is  so  ineffably  and  transcendently 
superior  to  every  other,  that,  in  the  last  unfolding  of 
the  Divine  Providence,  it  will  be  as  conspicuously  su- 
perior to  what  it  now  is  as  every  other  part  of  the 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO  LAW.  255 

human  economy  is  superior  to  what  it  was  in  times 
gone  by. 

DEPENDENCE   ON   GOD   NOT   GIVEN   UP. 

But  this  teaching  that  all  moral  and  spiritual  results 
are  subject  to  the  investigation  and  control  of  men,  — 
does  it  not  weaken  our  sense  of  dependence  upon  God  ? 
It  may,  but  it  ought  not  to.  What  is  our  se»se  of  de- 
pendence upon  God  ?  I  depend  on  God  for  the  con- 
tinuation of  my  reason;  but  while  that  is  preserved 
fresh  and  strong,  I  feel  bound  to  depend  on  myself.  I 
do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  depend  on  God,  and  then  sit  up 
all  night ;  to  depend  on  God  for  the  bright  exercise  of 
reason,  and  then  use  myself  up  by  twenty  hours  of  con- 
tinuous study,  when  I  have  immediately  before  me  a 
great  effort  to  make  in  a  public  assembly.  If  I  have  to 
preach  on  Sunday,  I  pray  God  to  help  me.  Help  me 
do  what?  Help  me  not  to  be  foolish  on  Saturday; 
help  me  not  to  use  myself  all  up  in  talking  and  laugh- 
ing, not  to  eat  anything  improper ;  help  me  to  be  in 
a  perfect  state  of  bodily  health :  help  me  to  have  elas- 
ticity of  spirit ;  help  me  to  have  such  entire  control  of 
myself  as  that  my  life  shall  beat  in  the  higher  part  of 
my  mind,  so  that  all  my  moral  nature  shall  be  lumi- 
nous, full,  impetuous,  and  wanting  to  corruscate.  So  I 
ask  God  to  help  me.  Not  directly  to  help  me  reason, 
but  to  help  me  that  I  may  use  reason  according  to  its 
laws,  that  I  may  understand  what  he  gave  to  me  and 
how  to  employ  it.  No  man  depends  on  God  so  much 
as  he  who  believes  that  laws  are  the  indexes  of  the 
Divine  will ;  and  he  truly  depends  on  God  who,  seeing 
natural  laws,  obeys  them.  There  is  no  other  explain- 


256          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

able  dependence  but  that.  And  certainly  the  rational 
explanation  of  revivals  does  not  decrease  that  depend- 
ence, but  rather  increases  it. 

"  But  does  it  not  inspire  in  men  a  vain  sense  of  con- 
fidence ? "  Is  a  farmer  inspired  with  vain  self-confi- 
dence, because  he  can  build  a  wall  ?  Because  a  man 
can  plow  his  ground  and  get  forty  bushels  of  wheat  to 
the  acre,  does  that  inspire  in  him  vain  self-confidence  ? 
Is  not  success  in  following  revealed  laws  the  way  to  en- 
courage men  to  normal  action  and  feeling  ?  If  I  find 
out  how  the  graces  of  the  Spirit  are  produced  by  the 
constitution  of  my  nature  and  the  constitution  of  God 
in  my  nature,  if  I  find  out  the  truest  and  the  best  way 
by  which  to  develop  them,  does  that  inspire,  or  tend  to 
inspire,  me  with  vain  self-confidence  ?  The  augmenta- 
tion of  the  sense  of  power  in  right  channels  and  right 
directions  is  wholesome,  it  is  good. 

Without,  therefore,  arguing  any  further  on  this  sub- 
ject, which  is  preliminary,  I  say  that  we  may  approach 
the  topic  of  the  production  of  revivals  of  religion  with 
perfect  boldness,  without  any  sense  of  irreverence,  and 
without  feeling  that  we  are  in  any  way  transgressing 
either  the  revealed  word  or  the  truth  as  manifested 
through  God's  providence. 

WHAT   IS  A  REVIVAL? 

What  is  a  revival  of  religion  ?  Describing  it  from 
the  outside,  it  is  a  deep  interest  in  personal  religion,  in 
a  church  or  in  a  neighborhood.  Or,  to  give  a  very  gen- 
eral definition,  it  is  the  existence,  in  a  large  number  of 
persons  at  the  same  time,  of  strong  moral  feeling.  It  is 
the  excitement  of  a  great  many  persons  together,  their 


REVIVALS  SUBJECT  TO  LAW.  257 

excitement  having  social  relations.  It  is  the  excite- 
ment of  many  people  together  on  one  subject,  and  that 
one  subject  their  moral  state,  their  religious  condition. 
It  is  the  excitement  of  a  great  many  persons  together 
on  the  subject  of  religion,  each  one  with  reference  to 
his  own  personal  feeling.  It  is  not  with  reference  to 
the  public  well-being,  but  to  each  man's  own  personal 
well-being.  These,  I  believe,  comprehend  the  phe- 
nomena of  revivals  of  religion.  They  will  vary  accord- 
ing to  circumstances.  That  is  to  say,  sometimes  the 
impression  will  come  silently,  like  the  dew  through 
the  night,  and  all  you  know  in  the  morning  is  that 
it  is  there.  At  other  times,  it  comes  with  a  rush,  as 
a  summer  storm  comes  after  long  drought.  At  other 
times,  this  great,  pervasive  feeling  in  the  church  or 
the  community  is  the  result  of  deliberate  planning  or 
action.  In  other  words,  it  has  all  the  varieties  that 
belong  to  nature.  It  adapts  itself  to  the  conditions 
of  men,  the  nature  of  the  community,  and  the  moods  in 
which  that  community  exists.  The  phenomena  are  in- 
finitely various. 

THE  AWAKENING  OF   CONSCIENCE. 

In  the  first  place,  revivals  sometimes  take  on  the 
form,  simply,  of  increased  attention.  I  have  heard  my 
father  say  that  his  first  effort  at  all  revivals  was  to  pro- 
duce attention,  thoughtfulness.  But  as  this  is  merely 
the  swelling  of  the  seed,  the  first  germ  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  true  revival  feeling  is  an  unusual  sensibility 
of  conscience,  or  of  moral  sense.  More  usually,  a 
revival  begins  with  a  feeling  arising  from  the  applica- 
tion of  an  ideal  rule  to  life.  It  is  accompanied  with 


258          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

a  sense  of  low  living.  Men  have  generally  this  feeling 
in  a  community :  "  We  are  not  living  right ;  we  are 
not  fit  to  die.  Something  needs  to  be  done  before  we 
are  prepared  to  meet  our  God."  Now,  all  these  impres- 
sions are  a  kind  of  obscure  utterance  of  conscience. 
The  real  thing  that  is  taking  place  is  that  the  con- 
science of  the  community  is  waking  up,  and  is  begin- 
ning to  apply  to  thought  and  feeling  new  measures,  or, 
if  not  new  measures  in  conception,  yet  new  measures 
in  practice.  Old  knowledges  become  vivid,  and  there 
is,  throughout  the  community,  an  actual  personal  sense 
of  unworthiness,  guilt,  sinfulness,  whatever  term  you 
choose  to  employ;  and  that  is  the  first  marked 
symptom.  It  may  be  tender,  gentle,  sweet  as  a  song, 
or  it  may  be  impetuous  and  harsh,  rending  as  a  storm. 
That  will  depend  upon  the  conditions  in  which  the 
community  is  and  has  been,  the  nature  of  the  instruc- 
tion the  people  have  had,  the  obliquities  through  which 
they  have  gone,  the  degradation  or  the  elevation  which 
has  previously  taken  place  in  them. 

THE   SENSE   OF  DANGER. 

Then,  there  is  the  sense  of  danger,  too.  Under  some 
administrations  that  sense  of  danger  will  predominate, 
and  all  that  goes  on  in  the  church  and  community  will 
go  on  under  the  stimulus  of  fear.  But  if  this  renewed 
excitement  of  conscience,  or  this  activity  of  the  moral 
sense,  could  be  made  to  act  under  the  consciousness  of 
the  essential  hatefulness  of  wrong,  and  thus  create  a 
revolt  from  moral  inferiority,  a  sense  of  something 
nobler  than  fear,  —  a  sense  of  obligation  to  God,  of  the 
shame  and  dishonor  of  receiving  everything  from  the 


KEVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  259 

hand  of  the  benefactor  and  returning  nothing  but  self- 
ish and  quarrelsome  ingratitude,  —  that  would  be  a  far 
more  wholesome  feeling.  But  it  runs  through  the  en- 
tire scale  of  motive,  from  this  more  noble  sense  of  the 
unbecomingness,  the  unworthiness,  the  ingratitude,  and 
the  dishonor  of  sin,  clear  down  to  the  lowest  tone  in 
the  base, —  the  fear  of  the  consequences  of  sin,  a  deeper 
sense  of  moral  responsibility,  an  increased  apprehen- 
siveness  of  danger. 

THE   STEUGGLE. 

.  Then  comes  the  struggle.  The  straggle  that  takes 
place  in  revivals  of  religion,  psychologically  stated,  is 
the  attempt  of  the  reason  and  of  the  moral  sentiments 
to  take  ascendency  of  the  passions  and  appetites.  It 
may  assume  a  doctrinal  form,  or  it  may  assume  a  prac- 
tical form.  That  is  to  say,  sometimes  the  struggle  is  of 
a  dissipated  man  to  break  away  from  his  dissipation ; 
sometimes,  of  an  ordinary,  respectable  business  man  to 
break  away  from  certain  improprieties  in  the  conduct 
of  his  business ;  and  sometimes,  in  highly  intellectual, 
theologically  indoctrinated  natures,  it  may  be  the 
struggle  as  to  whether  a  man  will  submit  his  will  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  will  of  God.  But  these  are  only 
forms.  The  real  thing  that  takes  place  is  a  nascent 
effort  of  the  superior  faculties  in  man  to  dominate  the 
inferior  and  come  to  sovereignty  in  the  soul.  It  in- 
volves a  clear  and  emphatic  view  of  God,  of  the  future 
of  our  existence.  I  have  ridden  many  and  many  a 
night  in  storms  and  darkness,  especially  in  the  West, 
where  my  early  life  was  largely  missionary,  when  it 
was  so  dark  I  could  not  see  the  horse's  ears  before 


260          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

me,  and  sometimes  when  storms  were  coming  on  or 
were  actually  raging.  I  think  there  are  no  phenom- 
ena, not  even  burning  prairies,  or,  still  more  terrible, 
burning  forests  in  the  night,  through  which  I  have 
ridden  when  the  swelling  streams  threatened  to  carry 
me  away,  —  nothing  so  impressive  to  me  as  those  sud- 
den flashes  of  light  that  revealed  to  me,  as  I  rode  over 
some  elevation,  the  whole  outlying  country,  so  that  I 
could  see  hill  and  valley,  distant  hut,  log-cabin,  the 
outlines  of  the  trees,  the  whole  shape  of  the  clouds  in 
the  heavens.  The  whole  was  instantaneous,  and  but 
for  a  second,  and  then  darkness  shut  down  again.  Now, 
where  men  are  riding,  as  it  were,  in  the  profound  dark- 
ness of  an  unconverted  and  sinful  life,  and  these  moral 
illuminations  come  and  throw  the  light  instantaneously, 
so  that  the  eternal  world  is  brought  near  to  their  con- 
sciousness, —  immortality,  all  that  is  meant  in  God  and 
heaven,  so  far  as  they  can  comprehend  them,  all  that  is 
meant  in  life  here,  all  that  is  right  and  wrong,  —  when 
all  this  is  brought,  as  in  a  moment,  in  a  vision,  before  a 
man's  mind,  it  is  one  of  the  grandest  experiences  that 
ever  comes  to  the  human  soul.  You  may  laugh  at  men 
under  conviction,  but  the  evolutions  that  are  taking- 
place  in  the  souls  of  men,  when  God's  Spirit  is  work- 
ing upon  them  in  revivals  of  religion,  have  in  them 
more  grandeur  than  the  evolutions  at  Waterloo,  or  in 
any  battle  that  was  ever  fought  upon  earth. 

THE  VICTORY. 

Then  there  is  a  transition  from  this  state  of  struggle 
to  one  of  victory,  purpose,  consecration;  one  in  which, 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  working  co-ordinately  with  human 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  2G1 

reason  and  with  the  human  will,  a  man  determines  his 
character  and  his  after-life,  passes  from  the  lower  plane 
of  selfishness  and  pride  into  the  plane  of  love  to 
God  and  love  to  men,  with  a  purpose  permanent,  irre- 
fragable, supreme.  These,  briefly  stated,  are  the  points 
of  the  phenomena  that  take  place  in  a  revival  of  re- 
ligion. Thoughtfulness,  leading  to  an  excited  moral 
sense;  a  new  measure  of  life  and  duty;  a  struggle 
and  a  victory,  in  which,  when  the  constituent  ele- 
ments are  examined,  it  will  be  found  that  a  perfect 
revolution  has  taken  place  in  the  interior  economy. 
The  man  that  before  lived  for  himself,  now  lives  for 
God  and  for  his  fellow-man.  He  who  lived  only  for 
time  is  now  living  for  eternity  as  well.  These  are  the 
things  that  take  place. 

HOW  TO   PRODUCE  THESE  RESULTS. 

Now  the  question  arises,  How  shall  we  attempt  to 
produce  these  ?  You  have  said  that  they  are  pro- 
ducible, how  shall  they  be  produced  ?  I  may  mention 
briefly,  as  the  result  of  my  own  observation,  that  there 
are  favoring  circumstances  in  Providence  which  deter- 
mine times  and  seasons  in  this  matter.  All  seasons  are 
not  alike  favorable.  All  methods,  we  know,  are  not  alike 
wise,  neither  are  all  seasons  propitious,  for  the  procur- 
ing of  these  results.  For  example  :  it  would  be  unwise 
to  attempt  to  excite  in  a  community  or  in  a  church  a  very 
wide-spread,  deep,  and  general  moral  excitement  while 
the  whole  community  is  burning  and  blazing  with  po- 
litical excitement ;  because  you  cannot  have  two  such 
excitements  at  the  same  time,  and  the  religious  feeling 
in  any  community  is  generally  so  feeble  that  it  is  not 


262          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

strong  enough  to  resist  this  greater  excitement.  There 
are  single  instances  in  which  revivals  of  religion,  well 
inaugurated,  have  survived  political  excitements ;  but  in 
those  cases  they  have  been  strong  before  the  other  ex- 
citements began,  and  they  have  been  shielded  and  sep- 
arated. Two  rivers  of  equal  force  may  come  together 
and  flow  on  together,  but  rills  entering  a  river  are  lost 
in  it.  These  major  excitements  overmaster  the  minor 
ones ;  and  the  moral  excitement  in  this  world  is  usually 
the  minor  one,  because  of  the  feebleness  of  this  element 
in  men.  You  must  lie  upon  your  oars  and  wait  for 
day,  watching  times  and  seasons.  Then  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  difference  in  the  time  of  the  year,  whether 
people  can  get  out  to  meetings  or  can  spare  the  time. 
Among  hundreds  of  revivals  I  have  known  only  one 
that  occurred  in  the  midst  of  harvest ;  because  men 
cannot  spare  the  time  from  the  harvest-field.  You  want 
time  and  leisure,  and  therefore  you  want  those  intervals 
of  the  year  when  men's  occupations  favor.  Business 
has  much  to  do  with  times  and  seasons.  For  instance, 
sometimes  men  are  hot  with  speculation,  and  the  whole 
air  is  full  of  it.  That  is  not  a  favorable  time  for  any 
processes  leading  toward  this  production  of  common 
moral  feeling.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  reaction 
comes.  Once  in  about  ten  years  you  may  make  up  your 
minds  that  things  will  go  down ;  and  immediately  fol- 
lowing the  universal  bankruptcy,  or  the  feeling  that 
men  are  bankrupt,  is  a  good  time  to  strike  in.  I  do  not 
think  that  times  of  general  sickness  are  opportune,  —  a 
little  remarkable,  that.  But  where  wide-spread  sick- 
nesses afflict  the  community,  they  generally  harden  the 
heart.  It  is  almost  never  a  good  time  for  revivals  after 


KEVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  263 

the  prevalence  of  sickness,  but  business  overthrows 
make  the  best  of  all  preparations.  There  is  notliing 
that  seems  to  cut  the  roots  of  man's  dependence  on  this 
world  like  that.  There  is  no  other  state  in  which  men 
seem  so  to  want  something  to  hold  them  up,  no  other 
state  of  mind  in  which  men  are  so  drooping,  despondent, 
and  longing,  in  which  they  feel  so  much  the  vanity  of 
this  life,  and  the  need  of  something  better  than  anything 
in  this  life,  as  they  do  when  the  hand  of  God's  provi- 
dence has  crushed  their  idols,  —  their  money.  Those 
are  precious  times,  —  times  never  to  be  lost  sight  of. 

Then  there  may  be  specially  favorable  circumstances 
in  communities.  And,  although  general  sickness  may 
not  be  favorable  to  revivals,  sometimes  the  death  of  a 
single  person  will  be  blessed  to  the  whole  community. 
In  a  case  within  my  knowledge,  the  drowning  of  two 
young  ladies  was  the  means  of  producing  such  univer- 
sal tenderness  and  seriousness,  that  it  culminated  in  a 
general  revival  of  religion.  So  a  young  man,  the  pride 
of  the  village,  brought  home  from  college  to  be  buried, 
of  whom  his  townsmen  had  hoped  the  best  and  the 
noblest  things,  and  in  whose  death  they  were  stricken, 
will  produce  a  state  of  mind  which,  if  wisely  followed 
up,  will  lead  to  the  raising  up  of  a  score  of  other  young 
men  that  will  more  than  fill  his  place.  All  these  things 
are  to  be  watched  in  the  community,  and  your  efforts 
at  revivals  are  to  be  at  particular  seasons  of  the  year. 
As  you  sow  in  spring  and  reap  in  autumn,  as  you  adapt 
all  the  economies  of  industry  to  varying  seasons,  so  you 
are  to  adapt  your  moral  culture  of  men  to  those  pecu- 
liarities of  God's  providence,  which,  with  a  little  care 
and  observation,  every  one  may  discern. 


264  LECTUKES   ON  PREACHING. 

QUESTIONS    AND    ANSWEKS. 

Q.  Do  you  say  that  revivals  are  sure  to  follow  when  means  are 
employed  in  the  appropriate  way,  at  appropriate  seasons  ? 

ME.  BEECHEE.  —  Just  as  sure  as  results  are  to  follow 
in  husbandry.  It  is  not  every  man  that  plows  well  and 
sows  well  who  gets  his  harvest ;  but  still,  that  is  the 
average  course  of  things,  and'  the  probability  is  such  as 
to  encourage  everybody.  It  is  not  every  ship  that  is 
well  built  that  is  lucky,  and  makes  good  voyages. 
There  is  n't  anything  that  is  absolutely  certain.  I  feel, 
though,  in  regard  to  revivals  of  religion  in  my  own 
church,  that  if  the  circumstances  of  the  community 
favor,  if  those  means  are  taken  by  which  men  are 
brought  together  and  kept  together  long  enough  to  pro- 
duce a  distinct  moral  impression  upon  them,  and  fol- 
low it  up  continuously,  the  result  is  just  as  certain 
as  any  other  result  in  the  operations  of  cause  and  effect 
in  life.  I  believe,  you  know,  that  religion  is  right 
living,  according  to  the  nature  that  God  has  given  us ; 
and  that  when  you  begin  to  open  up  to  men  their  na- 
ture and  show  them  what  is  the  great  law  of  rectitude, 
and  then  press  that  right  home  upon  them,  ordinarily 
those  who  have  been  raised  in  Christian  families  will 
go  right  forward.  I  honor  God  in  the  faith  that  the 
mind  will  act  according  to  those  laws  which  God  has 
given  to  it. 

Q.  Yesterday,  in  speaking  of  different  denominations  as  having 
seasons  of  revival,  our  Episcopal  brethren  were  mentioned  as, 
in  some  sort,  an  exception.  "Where  would  you  place  their  season 
of  Lent,  with  reference  to  its  bearing  upon  revivals  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  I  thought  afterwards,  on  returning 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO  LAW.  265 

home,  that  revivals,  in  the  usual  sense  of  that  term, 
were  believed  in  by  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  and  by  his  suc- 
cessor in  Brooklyn,  Dr.  Cutler.  I  have  known  indi- 
vidual instances  of  that  kind,  but  my  impression  is 
that,  in  general,  our  brethren  in  the  Episcopal  Church 
prefer  to  rely,  not  upon  spontaneous  and  irregular  in- 
fluences, but  upon  steady  and  constant  action  of  train- 
ing institutions.  The  Lenten  services  may  possibly  be 
considered  as  an  approach  towards  a  revival  state. 

REV.  DR.  BACON.  —  Is  n't  it  an  arrangement  to  have  a  revival 
of  religion  every  year,  at  a  certain  season  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  that  is  the  design.  It  is  to 
have  the  spring  of  the  year  come  in  with  a  very  strong 
impression  upon  the  minds  of  men  of  the  great  his- 
torical facts  of  Christianity,  with  their  appropriate  re- 
sults upon  the  heart. 

Q.  You  speak  of  some  seasons  as  being  more  favorable  than 
others  to  the  production  of  revivals.  After  all,  don't  you  think 
that  one  of  the  great  duties  of  ministers  and  of  churches  is  to 
watch  the  indications,  the  leadings  of  God's  providence  in  the 
spiritual  world,  as  by  analogy  we  do  in  the  physical  world? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  sir,  unquestionably.  Only,  I 
have  known  a  great  many  ministers  who  spent  the 
most  of  their  lives  in  waiting  for  God.  I  suppose  there 
is  scarcely  any  church  in  which  two  consecutive  years 
pass  without  possibilities  of  developing  more  or  less 
the  revival  spirit.  I  repeat  what  I  said  yesterday, 
and  what  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  of  more  fully, 
that  revivals  have  themselves  a  progressive  history 
in  any  church.  The  first  revival,  in  many  of  its  feat- 
ures, will  never  be  repeated.  The  next  one  will  be 

VOL.    II.  12 


266          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

an  advance  upon  that,  unless  the  interval  has  been 
so  long  that  the  first  has  been  forgotten.  But,  take  a 
period  of  twenty  years,  and  let  there  be  in  that  twenty 
years  eight  revivals  of  religion,  and  the  revivals  them- 
selves will  show  that  there  has  been  a  process  of  de- 
velopment. The  last  one  will  be  purer,  sweeter,  more 
efficacious,  less  physical,  with  less  of  the  awful,  if  I 
may  so  say,  than  the  first  one.  In  any  two  or  three 
years,  it  seems  to  me  that  a  man  whose  heart  is  warm, 
whose  zeal  is  strong,  will  find  openings  and  opportuni- 
ties for  either  partial  or  very  general  revivals.  In  al- 
most any  large  parish,  with  outlying  neighborhoods,  a 
revival  may  take  place  in  one  neighborhood,  but  not  in 
the  whole  parish,  —  sometimes  in  one  portion,  and 
sometimes  in  another.  And  these  little  affairs  are  to 
be  taken  care  of,  no  matter  if  there  are  only  five  or  six 
gathered  in ;  they  are  precious  fruits.  Never  refuse  to 
glean. 

Q.  My  question  would  relate  to  the  philosophy  of  revivals : 
Where  is  the  real  initiative  ?  Is  it  in  the  human  agent,  or  is  it  in 
the  Divine  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Everything  that  I  have  is  divine 
when  I  am  acting  in  the  line  of  law.  I  believe  myself 
to  be  under  the  inspiration  of  God  at  all  times,  and  that 
that  is  covered  by  the  injunction,  "  Whether  ye  eat  or 
drink,  or  whatever  ye  do,  do  all  for  the  glory  of  God." 
If  I  sit  down  to-day  to  write  to  those  whom  I  love,  the 
very  act  of  writing  is  something  sweet  and  pleasant  to 
me.  Not  that  I  like  to  write,  for  I  do  not,  very  much ; 
but,  after  all,  it  is  the  perfume  that  comes  over  from  the 
other  side  that  makes  it  sweet.  Now,  if  one  has  the 
sense  of  God,  and  lives  with  God,  and  feels  that  God  is 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO  LAW.  267 

his  father ;  if  he  has  the  sense  of  sonship,  and  carries 
within  himself  the  thought,  "  All  things  are  mine,  be- 
cause I  am  Christ's,"  —  then  there  is  no  part  of  his  life 
that  will  not  refer  to  God.  Under  those  circumstances, 
I  say,  that  when  I  see  there  is  a  little  opening,  and  I 
am  moved  to  go  right  into  it,  it  is  the  Divine  Spirit  that 
moves  me.  This  body  is  divine.  God  took  a  spark  of 
himself,  and  put  it  in  me,  and  called  it  Beecher.  There 
may  be  an  irreverent  way  to  take  that,  yet  there  is 
another,  —  the  affectionate  and  the  real  way. 

Q.  As  I  understand  it,  you  look  upon  a  revival  of  religion  as 
what  might  be  called  a  phenomenon,  and  not,  perhaps,  the  regular, 
normal  condition  of  a  church.  Would  you  consider  that  a  church 
ought  to  be,  or  can  possibly  be,  in  a  continued  revival  state  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  and  no.  That  is  to  say,  no,  if 
you  take  your  type  of  a  revival  from  that  condition  into 
which  churches  go  when  they  have  not  for  a  long  time 
had  one,  and  which  is  like  the  first  throwing  up  of  the 
soil,  with  the  disintegration  of  rocks,  full  of  violent  ef- 
fects, and  therefore  full  of  reactions  and  rebounds,  with 
much  allowance  to  be  made  all  the  way  through.  In 
that  highly  wrought  state,  a  church  could  not  possibly 
exist  all  the  time.  But  suppose  that  to  be  the  first  in 
order,  and  that  the  same  church,  after  about  two  years, 
has  another  revival ;  it  will  come  in  less  violently,  with 
less  retort,  with  less  intense  convictions.  And  your 
unthinking,  unwise,  good  old  men  will  pray  that  God 
would  give  them  another  such  shaking  as  they  had 
two  years  ago.  Well,  he  won't  give  them  another 
such  shaking,  because  that  was  a  shaking  with  twenty- 
five  years  of  deadness  before  it ;  this  has  had  but  two 
years  of  comparatively  little  falling  off  to  precede  it. 


268          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

It  will  be  much  richer,  sounder,  safer,  deeper,  more  com- 
prehensive, but  less  phenomenal.  Then,  after  two  or 
three  years,  will  come  in  another  divine  work  of  grace. 
That  will  come  as  tranquilly  as  the  morning  breaks  out 
of  the  night.  And  some  will  believe  that  the  work  is 
not  deep,  because  there  are  so  few  physical  manifesta- 
tions in  it ;  that  is,  nobody  breaks  down,  crying,  "  God 
be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner  ! "  with  a  shout  of  "  Amen ! " 
all  over  the  house.  That  is  what  is  called  a  very  pow- 
erful work  of  grace.  I  think  the  silences  of  nature 
are  greater  than  its  thunders.  I  think  that  what  is 
going  on  to-day  in  the  meadows,  where  millions  of 
pumps  are  drawing  up  the  water  through  the  trees  and 
through  the  air,  is  far  more  tremendous  than  any  en- 
ginery which  men  build  and  set  in  noisy  motion.  So, 
oftentimes  the  silences  of  religion  are  far  the  more 
powerful.  And  when  you  adopt  that  belief  in  the 
management  of  revivals,  till  men  are  accustomed  to 
religious  things,  there  is  no  violent  contrast  to  the  fore- 
going state,  and  they  will  have  grown  and  grown  until 
the  whole  congregation  have  come  up  to  the  higher 
level  of  thinking.  Eevivals  of  religion  in  that  state  are 
continuous,  but  not  in  the  lower,  convulsive  form  in 
which  they  usually  begin  in  untrained  populations,  or 
in  churches  which  are  not  accustomed  to  them. 

"When  you  ask  me,  therefore,  if  revivals  of  religion 
can  continue  all  the  time,  I  say  that  these  climacteric 
revivals  cannot.  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  month  in  the 
year  in  which  there  are  not  conversions  in  my  congre- 
gation, and  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  year  in  which  there 
are  not  hundreds  of  converts  brought  in.  We  do  not 
look  for  very  great  overflowings  now.  One  reason,  I 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  269 

think,  is,  there  are  a  thousand  men  and  women  there 
who  are  living  very  near  to  the  sweetness  of  the  divine 
life,  living  sympathetically  active  lives  all  the  time,  for- 
getting themselves,  working  for  others,  cheerfully,  hope- 
fully, socially,  and  gladly ;  and  people,  coming  in,  are 
at  once  affected  by  that  spirit,  and  they  begin  to  blos- 
som, as  a  bush  transplanted  from  the  north  to  a  far 
southern  latitude  begins  to  blossom. 

Q.  Would  it  not  be  consistent  with  your  view  to  hold  that 
prayer  is  more  essential  to  the  production  of  effects  in  a  revival, 
than  it  is  to  the  production  of  effects  in  farming  ? 

ME.  BEECHER.  —  Certainly..  That  is  to  say,  prayer  is 
more  nearly  related  to  the  results  you  want  to  produce. 
Guano  is  better  for  farming  than  prayer,  but  prayer  is 
the  guano  of  spiritual  life.  Pray  always.  I  hold  that 
prayer  is  to  a  man  what  perfume  is  to  a  flower,  —  it 
cannot  open  its  mouth  without  perfume  coming  out  of 
it.  And  the  praying  always,  the  thought,  the  feeling, 
the  taste,  the  sense  of  pleasure,  the  social  gladness, 
all  the  while  effervesces,-  so  that  it  takes  the  upward 
tendency.  It  reports  itself  continually  through  the 
higher  feelings  towards  God,  and  that  I  suppose  to 
be  prayer,  —  communion,  God  with  us.  I  suppose  you 
sought  to  prevent  the  impression  getting  abroad  that 
I  regarded  a  revival  as  a  kind  of  mechanical  matter, 
like  farming,  or  a  stroke  of  business. 

Q.  No.  But  you  say  the  supernatural  is  exerted  in  both,  and 
is  exerted  according  to  law.  I  simply  wanted  to  have  you  bring 
out  this,  —  which  I  supposed  was  implied  in  your  view,  —  that 
among  the  antecedents  in  the  production  of  this  class  of  effects  is 
prayer ;  and  in  a  sense  different  from  what  it  is  in  the  production 
of  effects  in  husbandry,  for  instance. 


270          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Ah,  I  do  not  know  that  I  should 
say  that. 

Q.  Well,  farming  goes  on  in  heathen  countries,  it  may  be,  if 
they  are  equally  acquainted  with  husbandry,  as  well  as  in  Chris- 
tian countries,  without  prayer. 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  that  shows  that  without  prayer 
you  can  farm,  but  it  does  not  show  that  you  can  farm 
without  the  divine  effluence.  It  only  shows  that  God 
does  not  always  measure  his  influence  by  prayer. 

Q.    Can  revivals  be  produced  without  prayer  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  have  seen  many  men  produce  re- 
vivals of  religion  that  I  did  not  think  were  very  praying 
men.  I  thought  their  work  limped,  and  was  very  im- 
perfect. Although  I  do  not  disesteem  —  I  exceedingly 
value  —  the  use  of  prayer,  yet  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  it  bears  the  same  relation  to  this  result  which  you 
seem  to  think  it  does.  It  has  a  relation,  and  a  very  im- 
portant one. 

Q.  It  seems  to  me  it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  your  general 
view  of  the  government  of  law  in  the  case,  to  suppose  that  prayer 
is  one  of  the  appointed  antecedents  in  regard  to  spiritual  bless- 
ings. 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  It  is  one  of  them. 

Q.   And  a  very  important  one  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Well,  I  put  this  case  to  you :  Sup- 
pose that  I  go  home  and  find  my  little  girl,  five  years 
old,  in  whom  my  heart  is  bound  up,  dead :  that  I  am  so 
constituted  that  I  would  not  stop  preaching  because  of 
my  child's  death,  but  would  feel  a  heroic  sense  of  duty 
to  preach  on  that  very  account :  that  I  should  go  into 
my  pulpit,  and  it  were  known  to  all  my  people  that 


REVIVALS   SUBJECT  TO   LAW.  271 

my  little  girl  Mary  was  gone,  and  I  should  stand  there 
and  preach  just  as  well  as  I  could,  the  tears  running 
down  my  cheeks,  my  utterance  choked,  and  that  tho 
word  should  come  back  to  me  on  prayer-meeting  night, 
when  the  lecture-room  was  crowded,  that  there  was  a 
powerful  impression  there.  Would  you  say  that  that 
work  had  been  brought  on  by  the  superior  instrumen- 
tality of  prayer  ?  Was  n't  it  that  Divine  providence, 
acting  on  the  sympathies,  the  imagination,  the  heart 
and  its  best  feelings?  On  the  other  hand,  I  have 
known,  in  churches  where  it  was  as  dry  as  Sahara, 
many  a  godly  man  labor  through  weeks  and  months 
without  any  external  encouragement;  but,  after  all, 
there  was  gathering  there  a  moral  momentum,  to  break 
out  by  and  by  in  tides.  Now,  I  say  that  prayer  is 
an  aid,  a  powerful  antecedent;  yet  I  would  not  say 
that  it  is  the  indispensable  and  inevitable  one. 

Q.  Suppose  that,  when  all  those  young  people  were  got  together 
in  the  lecture-room,  there  were  no  prayer,  would  there  be  much  of 
a  revival  of  religion  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  But  the  revival  has  begun,  and  of 
course  you  could  not  help  praying  under  the  circum- 
stances. 

Q.  Suppose  it  has  not  begun.  Take  Ilabakkuk,  for  example, 
where  he  says,  "  In  the  midst  of  the  years  make  known  ;  in  wrath, 
remember  mercy."  And  then  the  Psalmist,  "  Wilt  thou  not  re- 
vive us  again,  that  our  people  may  rejoice  in  thee  ?  "  There  are 
two  instances  of  prayer,  and  Mr.  Barnes  founded  his  series  of  ser- 
mons on  revivals  upon  one  of  these  very  texts.  And  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost  men  prayed  for  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit.  What 
do  you  make  of  these  instances  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  I  don't  want  to  make  anything  of 


272          LECTURES  OX  PREACHING. 

them.  They  are  made.  You  put  the  question  as  if  I 
had  propounded  the  theory  that  revivals  of  religion 
are  possible  without  prayer,  and  that  there  was  no  im- 
portant relation  of  prayer.  I  say,  No  ;  I  say  that  that 
is  one  of  the  channels  through  which  causation  seems 
to  flow.  It  is  but  one.  You  brought  up  Habakkuk's 
revival,  —  or  one  that  he  prayed  for  and  did  n't  get. 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  EEYIVALS. 

CLOSED  last  week,  in  discussing  the  ques- 
tion of  revivals  of  religion,  with  the  consid- 
eration of  times  and  seasons,  such  as  might 
favor,  or  such  as  might  hinder,  the  devel- 
opment of  a  religious  enthusiasm  in  a  community. 
We  must  bring  to  mind  again,  in  going  forward  with 
this  subject,  the  prime  idea,  the  root  of  revival;  it 
is  the  development  in  a  church,  or  in  a  community, 
of  a  deep  religious  enthusiasm  under  social  aspects 
and  with  reference  to  some  immediate  results.  That, 
then,  which  shall  tend  to  arrest  the  attention  of  men, 
to  interest  them  in  religious  matters,  to  produce  a 
normal  excitement  which  may  be  called  enthusiasm, 
and  to  turn  this  enthusiasm  to  certain  immediate  and 
personal  ends,  —  that  is  the  thing  to  be  sought  by  every- 
one who  strives  to  develop  among  his  people  a  revival 
of  religion.  Eevivals  are  in  no  sense  to  be  regarded  as 
antagonistic  to  regular  institutional  work.  They  do 
something  which  cannot  be  done  by  ordinary  instru- 
mentalities. They  do  many  things  far  more  easily 
than  they  can  be  done  in  any  other  way.  There  are 
12*  K 


274          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

men  who  can  be  lifted  out  of  the  conditions  in  which 
they  are  living  when  there  is  a  swell  in  the  whole 
community,  that  could  not  be  lifted  without  this 
collateral  social  aid.  I  am  not  speaking  of  what  is 
within  the  power  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  I  am  only 
speaking  of  what  we  know  to  be  facts  in  the  ordinary 
development  of  Christian  work.  "Without  a  doubt,  by 
the  exercise  of  Divine  power,  anything  might  be  done ; 
but,  without  a  doubt,  the  Divine  power  does  not  act  in 
communities,  except  by  methods,  channels,  laws,  instru- 
ments ;  and  we  are  to  watch  and  study  these,  in  order 
that  we  may  put  ourselves  in  the  line  of  the  working 
of  Providence. 

EFFECT  OF  REVIVALS  WITHIN  THE   CHURCH. 

The  results,  then,  at  which  we  aim,  in  revivals  of 
religion,  are  twofold.  First,  the  immediate  conversion 
of  men  from  selfishness  and  worldliness  to  a  Christian 
and  godly  life ;  and,  secondly,  the  exaltation  of  Christian 
character  in  the  church  to  a  higher  plane,  to  a  nobler 
form  of  development.  Even  if  there  were  to  be  no  in- 
gathering from  the  world,  a  refreshing  —  as  it  is  called 
in  old-fashioned  language  —  a  refreshing  of  grace  in 
a  church  is  pre-eminently  desirable,  pre-eminently  a 
blessing  from  God,  though  it  may  stop  with  the  mem- 
bers of  the  church.  For,  as  our  power  is  not  numeri- 
cal, but  moral,  it  is  not  so  much  the  number  as  the 
quality  of  the  members  in  a  church  that  determines  its 
power.  A  church  of  twenty  men  who  are  eminent  in 
grace  and  goodness  is  a  larger  church,  if  you  measure 
size  by  power,  than  a  church  of  two  thousand  that  arc 
living  a  very  low  and  worldly  life.  So  that  when  men 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  KEVILALS.  275 

in  the  church  have  been  living  in  routine  Christianity, 
without  any  very  active  development  of  personal  faith 
and  of  the  sweetness  of  the  Christian  graces,  it  may 
often  be  the  case  that  a  revival  of  religion  will  do  its 
Divine  work  within  the  church,  and,  though  there  are 
not  many  to  be  counted  as  added  to  the  list,  the  church 
itself  will  be  immensely  strengthened,  and  its  power 
augmented.  The  desire  of  gathering  in  a  large  number 
from  without  is  not  indeed  unnatural  or  reprehensible ; 
nor  is  the  work  unimportant.  But  it  is  still  more  im- 
portant that,  in  gathering  in  these  men,  those  that 
gather  should  themselves  be  built  up,  developed,  and 
made  more  powerful 

BOKX  AGAIN. 

As  to  the  former  purpose,  we  seek  in  a  revival  of 
religion  the  ingathering  of  men  to  a  new  life.  I  read 
in  the  Word,  —  I  had  almost  said,  with  regret,  —  "  Ye 
must  be  born  again  "  ;  because  my  heart  looks  at  it  in 
such  a  way  that  I  feel  that,  instead  of  being  a  duty,  it 
is  the  greatest  privilege  ;  it  is  a  wonder  of  grace  almost 
contravening  the  order  of  nature.  "Ye  may  be  born 
again,"  as  if  it  were  a  permission,  would  seem  to  me 
almost  a  better  rendering.  It  is  true  that  it  is  impera- 
tive, —  "  Ye  must  be  " ;  but,  after  all,  "  Ye  may  "  is  still 
more  sweet,  and  not  less  imperative.  If  a  man,  after 
living  forty-five  or  fifty  years,  had  committed  such 
errors  and  mistakes  as  to  be  compelled  to  retire  bank- 
rupt into  private  life,  all  his  business  experience  only 
showing  him  that  he  had  gone  wrong,  and  could  then 
have  the  privilege  of  beginning  again,  with  all  his 
added  experience,  just  as  fresh  and  hopeful  as  if  he  had 


276          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

never  made  a  mistake,  what  a  privilege  that  would 
seem  to  him  !  But  this  he  cannot  do.  He  has  no  credit; 
and,  in  the  ordinary  tenure  of  life,  there  is  no  time,  after 
the  fiftieth  year,  for  a  man  to  change  the  impressions  of 
the  community  about  him.  The  circumstances  are  all 
against  him,  and  he  must  go  on,  and  probably  end  his 
life  in  poverty.  See  how  it  is  with  Christian  character. 
The  community  is  unspeakably  more  lax  than  God  is, 
and  permits  all  manner  of  prevarications,  all  manner 
of  deceits,  all  manner  of  cruelties.  While  men  are 
moderately  respectable,  it  winks  at  them  and  covers 
them  and  indulges  them,  until  they  go  below  a  cer- 
tain line,  and  then  there  is  nothing  that  has  such  lion's- 
teeth  as  the  community.  When  a  man  is  broken  down 
by  sinning  and  wants  to  come  back  again ;  when  he  has 
stolen ;  when  he  has  betrayed  fiduciary  trusts ;  when  he 
has  been  sent  once  to  the  penitentiary  for  a  public 
crime,  and  every  man  stands  against  him,  if  not  with 
fierceness,  yet  with  cold  distrust,  and  with  unwilling- 
ness to  help  him,  —  if  then  a  man  could  come  back 
from  the  prison  and  have  it  said  to  him,  "Now, 
then,  by  proper  conduct  you  may  stand  just  as  you 
stood  before  in  the  community,"  what  a  bounty  of 
blessing  it  would  be  to  him  !  But  here  is  the  word 
of  God's  grace,  saying  to  men  that  have  lived  for  ten, 
twenty,  thirty  years  in  the  way  of  transgression,  "  Now 
you  may  begin  again  just  like  a  little  child,  and 
take  a  new  start.  God  is  lenient,  gracious,  merciful, 
slow  to  anger,  abundant  in  goodness,  forgiving  iniquity, 
transgression,  and  sin."  It  is  this  one  thing  that  we 
bear  in  mind,  —  the  possibility  of  renewing  the  moral 
character  of  men.  The  great  point  of  doubt  has  been 


THE   CONDUCT   OF  REVIVALS.  277 

whether  it  is  possible  to  renew  moral  character  sud- 
denly, whether  it  can  be  done  by  afflatus.  No,  it 
cannot.  That  is,  character  is  a  thing  that  grows 
slowly,  but  the  beginnings  of  it  can  be  established ; 
the  foundations  can  be  relaid  of  elements  which  go  to 
establish  new  habits,  and  a  character  can  be  begun  on 
a  new  basis.  This  may  be  very  sudden.  A  gambler 
may  cease  in  a  moment  to  gamble,  and  never  touch 
again  the  instruments  of  deceit.  A  drunkard  may,  in 
a  single  moment,  come  to  a  decision  by  which  he  shall 
never  again  touch  the  fatal  cup.  The  effects  of  his  past 
misconduct  will  not  pass  away  at  once ;  but  the  man 
has  made  a  stand  that  will  affect  his  whole  character 
for  time  and  for  eternity.  A  man  may  be  pursuing  a 
dissolute  life,  and  in  a  single  hour  he  may  set  the  rudder 
so  that  his  whole  track  after  that  will  be  upon  another 
line.  The  beginnings  may  be  sudden.  It  is  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  power  by  which  men, 
not  in  single  instances  alone,  but  in  ranks  and  in  multi- 
tudes, may  be  brought  in,  that  inspires  us  to  work  in 
revivals  of  religion.  Men  may  be  changed.  We  do 
not  get  up,  therefore,  a  religious  enthusiasm  in  a  social 
form  simply  to  enjoy  ourselves  and  to  exalt  the  feeling 
of  the  church,  but  because  in  the  heat  thus  generated 
you  can  develop  in  wicked  men  a  newness  of  life  which 
it  would  seem  very  difficult  to  develop  under  any  other 
circumstances.  This  is  the  language  of  experience  and 
observation,  and  not  merely  of  theory. 

WHERE   TO   BEGIN   REVIVAL  WORK. 

The  first  question  that  would  naturally  come  up  in 
treating  of  how  to  begin  is :  In  working  for  a  revival 


278          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

of  religion,  shall  the  man  who  has  the  conduct  of  af- 
fairs begin  with  the  church,  or  shall  he  begin  with  the 
community  ?  And  this  question  becomes  somewhat 
more  important,  because  there  have  been  a  great  many 
revivalists,  as  they  are  called,  who  have  had  the  gift  or 
power  given  them  by  the  Master  of  the  church  of  de- 
veloping this  enthusiasm  of  religion  in  a  social  form  in 
communities.  Mr.  Avery  was  accustomed  —  and,  if 
alive,  I  suppose  he  would  still  follow  that  course  —  to 
refuse  to  say  a  single  word  to  sinners  until  he  had 
dealt  with  the  church.  He  usually  called  them  to- 
gether, set  their  sins  in  order  before  their  eyes,  and 
demanded  of  them  certain  expiatory  experiences ;  and 
when  he  had  got  the  church  broken  in,  then  he  turned 
to  the  other  sinners,  and  opened  the  doors  of  hope  and 
grace  for  them.  I  don't  say  that  this  is  not  proper  some- 
times ;  but  it  was,  I  think,  his  uniform  practice,  on  the 
theory  that  it  is  in  vain  to  expect  anything  to  be  done 
with  men  out  of  the  church,  while  the  stumbling-block 
of  the  church  lies  right  in  their  way.  Others  have  pur- 
sued a  directly  opposite  course,  and  have  begun  first  to 
deal  with  the  congregation  at  large.  Others  —  as  Dr. 
Finney,  for  instance  —  have  attempted  to  develop  a 
large  system  of  doctrinal  views,  and  to  bring  the  com- 
munity very  generally  under  a  common  theological 
influence,  before  they  began  to  make  any  important 
strokes  fofr  results  ;  intellectualizing,  indoctrinating  the 
community  for  a  long  time.  I  am  not  here  to  criticise 
that ;  but  this  I  say,  there  is  no  prescriptive  way,  and 
there  is  no  one  way.  You  must  determine  by  circum- 
stances. -If  you  were  to  ask  General  Moltke  what  was 
the  proper  mode  of  taking  a  fort,  from  the  north  or  the 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS.         279 

south,  from  the  east  or  the  west,  he  would  laugh  at 
you.  He  would  say  that  the  way  to  take  a  fort  is  to 
find  where  it  is  weakest,  and  to  attack  there.  There 
are  circumstances  in  which  your  force  should  be  con- 
centrated on  the  church ;  there  are  circumstances  in 
which  it  should  not.  In  my  own  ministry,  I  have  con- 
sidered the  church  and  the  people  outside  of  it  as  all 
sinners  together,  and  I  have  worked  for  the  whole 
crowd.  It  is  true  that  a  united  church,  brought  into  a 
high  spiritual  state,  will  have  a  very  powerful  moral 
influence  upon  the  world  outside  ;  but  it  is  just  as  true 
that  a  single  conversion  outside  will  be  a  trumpet-call 
to  wake  up  a  whole  church.  The  action  from  the  out- 
side to  the  inside  is  just  as  easy,  often,  as  from  the  in- 
side to  the  outside.  Carry  on  both  systems.  Help  the 
church  by  society.  Help  society  by  the  church.  Work 
one  against  the  other.  Don't  fall  into  routine,  or  into 
set  schools  of  revivalism.  It  is  spiritual  engineering, 
and  you  are  to  judge  by  the  circumstances  and  the  facts 
in  the  case  what  is  the  wisest  and  best  thing  to  do. 

PREPARATION  IN  THE  PREACHER. 

As  to  the  means  that  are  to  be  employed  to  develop 
a  revival  in  the  church,  first  and  foremost  I  mention 
preaching ;  and,  in  order  to  this,  much  depends  on  your 
own  state  of  mind.  I  think  that,  almost  always,  a  man 
has  in  his  own  heart  the  prophecy  of  these  things.  I 
have  waked  up  in  spring  mornings,  and  the  air  has 
smelt  differently  from  what  it  did  before.  I  have  gone 
out  of  doors,  not  thinking  that  it  was  spring,  but  it  was 
brought  home  to  me  by  the  changed  aspect  of  things 
around.  So  I  have  found,  in  my  own  ministry,  that 


280          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

wheil  my  heart  was  right  for  this  work  of  God,  I  some- 
how had  it  brought  to  me  in  a  way  which  inspired  cour- 
age and  zeal  and  purpose ;  an  intensity  of  feeling  that 
assured  me  I  was  going  to  succeed, — not  I,  but  the  grace 
of  God  that  was  in  me.  I  had  a  courage,  a  sort  of  certi- 
tude in  me.  "  The  time  has  come !  the  time  has  come  ! " 
and  I  went  down  into  the  work  with  the  feeling,  "  I  will 
not  be  denied  !  I  will  have  this  blessing !  Slay  me,  but 
give  me  this  ! "  And  where  a  man  has  even  the  smallest 
beginnings  of  this  feeling,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  impart  it. 
Now,  how  shall  a  man  come  at  it,  if  he  has  n't  it  ? 
I  might  say  to  a  pastor,  "  Art  thou  a  master  in  Israel, 
and  knowest  not  these  things  ? "  You  have  not  had  a 
charge,  and  so  I  don't  blame  you.  In  what  way  shall 
a  man  who  has  the  cure  of  souls  and  is  waiting  for 
souls;  who  believes  in  God  and  immortality,  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  dying  and  necessitous  condi- 
tion of  men,  —  in  what  wray  shall  he  come  into  active 
sympathy  with  them  ?  Suppose  a  surgeon  should  say 
to  me,  going  down  to  a  great  military  hospital,  "I  am 
going  down  to  a  great  work,  and  I  don't  know  but 
my  zeal  and  courage  will  flag ;  how  would  you  advise 
me  to  prepare  to  take  an  interest  in  this  thing  and 
sympathize  with  these  poor  wounded  soldiers  ? "  If 
he  needed  telling,  he  would  not  be  fit  to  be  a  surgeon. 
The  circumstanees  themselves  will  be  all  the  incite- 
ment he  needs.  When  a  man  looks  over  his  congre- 
gation, and  thinks  of  them,  feels  for  them,  prays  for 
them,  carries  them  in  his  heart,  when  they  are  really 
dear  to  him,  —  in  part  because  they  are  dear  to  Christ, 
who  is  dearer  to  him  than  life  itself,  — it  seems  to  me  he 
needs  very  little  instruction  on  this  matter.  Only  this  : 


THE  CONDUCT   OF  REVIVALS.  281 

if  you  have  cares  that  are  freighting  and  harassing  you, 
lay  them  aside.  If  you  have  worldly  business,  or  any- 
thing of  that  kind,  that  is  absorbing  your  time  and  pre- 
venting the  kindling  in  you  of  an  enthusiastic  devo- 
tion to  your  work,  put  that  aside,  no  matter  what  it 
may  cost  you.  If  you  find  your  own  spiritual  feelings 
have  been  scattered,  take  those  means  which  you  recom- 
mend to  your  people,  —  your  Bible,  your  closet.  Humble 
yourself  before  God.  But  I  beseech  you  to  avoid  that 
kind  of  crawling,  that  prostration,  that  takes  the  very 
manhood  out  of  a  man.  I  don't  think  God  wants  to 
have  a  man  crawl  before  him  like  a  worm.  I  don't 
think  he  is  any  more  pleased  to  see  that  than  you 
would  be  to  see  your  children  act  so.  I  have  a  little 
dog  at  the  farm  that,  when  I  come  home,  is  so  exceed- 
ingly glad  that  he  lies  down  and  squirms  and  rolls 
over  on  his  back,  so  that  I  want  to  kick  him.  If  I  had 
a  child  that  acted  so  toward  me,  •  I  should  not  esteem 
him  the  more.  That  same  dog,  although  he  is  so  affec- 
tionate, will  kill  chickens,  and  he  never  can  hide  the 
working  of  his  conscience,  —  for  he  has  a  moral  nature 
in  him,  —  and  I  know  just  as  soon  as  I  see  Frolic, 
whether  he  has  been  killing  chickens.  If  I  point  my 
finger  downward  he  is  so  submissive,  and  flattens  him- 
self like  a  pancake,  and  crawls  up  to  me  for  forgiveness ! 
Now,  a  dog  don't  know  any  better,  but  a  man  ought  to. 
And  I  have  seen  men  who  seemed  to  think  that  if  they 
emptied  themselves  before  God  and  made  themselves 
mean,  and  said  all  manner  of  self-abasing  things,  it 
would  fit  them  for  the  work.  No !  Manliness  !  No 
doubt  every  man  has  enough  to  confess,  but  God  wants 
men  to  come  to  him  as  though  they  were  his  sons.  I 


282          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

am  a  son  of  God,  discrowned,  dishonored  by  imperfec- 
tion, by  manifold  transgression,  but  my  Father's  blood 
is  in  me.  I  am  a  son  of  God !  I»will  confess  my  sin, 
but  I  will  stand  before  him  as  his  son  still.  I  am 
willing  to  be  chastised,  but  I  am  not  willing  to  crawl 
in  the  dust,  as  if  I  were  not  an  immortal  creature.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  weaken  yourself  so.  But  pour  out 
your  heart  with  strong  desires  before  God.  Love  men ! 
Love  God!  Work! 

Now,  as  soon  as  a  man  comes  into  that  state,  if  he 
is  going  to  be  successful,  his  preaching  will  be  intensely 
earnest,  it  will  be  exceedingly  clear,  it  will  be  personal. 
So  much  for  the  state  of  mind  preparatory  to  preaching. 

SPECIAL  KIND   OF  PREACHING  REQUIRED. 

At  other  times  you  are  giving  general  instruction, 
but  now  you  converge  the  knowledge  that  men  are  sup- 
posed to  have.  You  are  bringing  it  to  a  definite  pur- 
pose. When  a  man  is  stating  law  in  the  lecture-room, 
he  pursues  one  course ;  but  when  he  stands  before  a 
jury,  to  win  a  case,  all  that  he  ever  knew  is  concentrated 
for  a  definite  purpose.  He  thinks  of  their  verdict.  We 
preach  a  great  many  sermons,  and  properly,  which  are 
to  promote  meditation,  which  are  to  bring  forth  their 
fruit  gradually  in  the  family  and  in  the  community  at 
large.  That  is  well  enough;  but  when  revivals  have 
set  in,  our  preaching  is  for  immediate  results  in  the 
hearts  and  souls  and  consciences  of  our  fellow-men. 
So  that,  while  every  sermon  is  an  instruction,  it  is  also  a 
plea.  Every  sermon  is  to  have  in  it  a  grasp,  an  inten- 
sity of  hold  upon  men,  that  shall,  from  day  to  day  and 
from  week  to  week,  have  its  influence.  You  shall  feel 


THE   CONDUCT   OF  REVIVALS.  283 

in  yourself  that  every  time  you  preach  a  sermon  you 
have  drawn  some  man,  you  have  gained  some  man. 
That  is  the  ideal ;  that  is  the  aim. 

In  preaching,  in  revivals  of  religion,  the  great  things 
you  wish  to  secure  are  the  reason,  the  moral  sense,  and 
the  imagination  of  men.  Men  work  more  by  imagina- 
tion than  we  suppose ;  not  in  the  form  in  which  it  is 
associated  with  poetry,  but  with  that  action  of  it  which 
brings  invisible  things  to  sight,  which  enlarges  the 
scope  of  existence,  —  in  short,  which  brings  the  eternal 
future  very  near  to  men.  Sermons  must  bring  out 
those  truths  of  God's  word  that  are  sure  to  have  effect. 
They  must  bring  out  those  truths  which  satisfy  the  judg- 
ment, the  common-sense  of  men ;  which  also  frequently 
arraign  and  satisfy  the  conscience  ;  and  which  do  these 
things  in  the  light  of  the  higher  relations  which  men 
sustain  to  the  future  and  to  the  government  of  God.  I 
say  this,  because  many  people  suppose  that,  in  revivals 
of  religion,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  address  the  feel- 
ings, to  sing  men  along,  to  exhort  them  along,  to  carry 
them  along  they  scarcely  know  how.  There  is  a  place 
for  singing  and  for  the  social  exercises  in  the  subordi- 
nate meetings ;  but  a  minister  ought  never  to  preach  so 
well,  so  strongly,  so  clearly,  and  so  compactly,  never 
with  such  appeal  to  a  man's  deepest  nature  and  through 
his  imagination  to  his  whole  being,  as  in  the  initial  state 
of  revivals  of  religion. 

FREQUENCY  OF   SERVICES. 

As  to  the  amount  of  preaching  that  is  to  be  done,  or 
the  number  of  meetings  that  are  to  be  held,  I  would 
say  that  depends  on  circumstances.  In  good  old  New 


284          LECTURES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

England  times,  to  a  reflective  people, accustomed  to  argue, 
cautious,  conservative,  you  might  preach  powerfully  on 
Sunday,  have  one  extra  meeting  during  the  week,  and 
perhaps  one  or  two  more  prayer-meetings  in  neighbor- 
hoods. That  would  serve  to  bring  people  forward.  They 
would  get  along  on  that.  But  take  later  communities 
that  are  full  of  vital  influence,  nimble,  enterprising, 
active,  with  fugitive  plans  and  thoughts,  changing 
every  day,  rushing,  —  why,  that  would  produce  scarcely 
any  impression  upon  them ;  and  the  proper  treatment 
is  by  frequent  meetings  and  continuous  meetings,  by 
iteration  that  shall  overcome  all  the  distractions  outside 
of  them.  The  aim  is  to  bring  men  into  a  state  in  which 
they  are  susceptible  of  moral  development,  of  the  high- 
er forms  of  Christian  feeling ;  and,  therefore,  how  fre- 
quently you  are  to  preach  depends  very  much  upon  the 
parish  you  are  in.  Sometimes  once  or  twice  a  week, 
sometimes  every  day  in  the  week,  with  prayer-meetings 
besides.  I  think,  in  a  time  of  revival,  a  minister  can 
generally  preach  once  a  day  and  once  or  twice  on  Sun- 
day much  easier  than,  at  other  times,  he  can  preach 
once  or  twice  in  the  week.  Nothing  so  strengthens  a 
man,  or  makes  him  so  fertile,  or  enables  him  to  carry 
work  so  well,  as  to  be  in  a  revival  of  religion.  There 
is  some  difference  among  men.  Some  have  so  slender 
a  constitution,  their  vital  force  is  so  insufficient,  that 
they  cannot  bear  the  strain  on  nature.  Yet,  on  the 
average,  men  can  carry  more  work  than  they  think 
they  can,  if  they  don't  squander  themselves.  I  don't 
hold  up  my  own  case  as  an  example.  I  have  an  uncom- 
monly strong  constitution,  and  have  great  resiliency 
and  recuperativeness ;  but  I  have  preached  every  day 


THE   CONDUCT   OF   REVIVALS.  285 

for  long  periods,  and  twice  on  Sunday  besides,  holding 
an  inquiry -meeting  and  a  prayer-meeting  and  doing  a 
great  deal  of  visiting  intermediately,  and  that  too,  as 
far  as  I  could  see,  without  any  weariness  or  reaction 
afterward.  It  was  not  merely  because  I  was  strong. 
It  was  because  I  worked  on  the  saccharine  juices,  and 
not  on  the  acid. 

COUKAGE  GIVES   STRENGTH. 

If  you  work  on  the  principle  of  "awful  responsi- 
bility," if  you  have  all  the  time  the  feeling  of  anxiety 
and  care,  if  you  go  about  bowed  down  with  worry,  you 
will  be  exhausted  very  quickly.  You  cannot  bear  much. 
But  go  about  from  day  to  day,  in  the  midst  of  the  out- 
pourings of  God's  spirit,  with  this  feeling  :  "  The  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  is  my  elder  brother.  He  thinks  of  me 
and  of  my  people  a  thousand  times  more  than  I  do. 
This  is  his  work.  He  will  surely  accomplish  it,  and 
he  says  to  me,  '  Trust  in  me,  love  me,  hope,  and  be 
courageous.'"  If  I  go  on  the  principle  of  love  and 
trust,  I  can  do  ten  times  the  work  that  I  could  do  on 
the  principle  of  anxiety  and  conscious  responsibility. 
There  is  nothing  that  wears  a  man  out  so  soon  as  worry, 
and  there  is  no  worry  like  that  which  comes  from  the 
attrition  of  anxiety  in  ministerial  life.  Ministers  are 
so  afraid  they  shall  not  do  things  just  right ;  so  afraid 
they  have  not  dealt  with  this  man  just  as  they 
should  do ;  so  afraid  that  sermon  was  not  quite  right. 
Of  course  it  was  not.  You  may  as  well  take  that  for 
granted  in  the  beginning.  You  will  never  do  anything 
just  right,  never  say  anything  just  right.  God  knew 
it  when  he  made  us,  and  he  made  us  notwithstand- 


286          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

ing;  he  knows  it,  and  employs  us  with  that  under- 
standing. 

No  man  is  perfect  here.  All  our  best  work  is  full 
of  chaff.  If  we  could  see  the  truth  as  God  sees  it, 
and  then  as  we  preach  it,  the  last  would  seem  to  us 
despicable.  The  old  figure  of  our  righteousness  being 
filthy  rags  is  true,  in  this  higher  interpretation  of  moral 
feeling.  Therefore,  let  it  be  true  at  once  and  for  all. 
Dismiss  it  forever;  and  do  not,  all  the  time,  act  as 
if  you  thought  you  could  be  perfect',  and  it  was 
only  from  want  of  vigilance  or  anxiety  that  you  had 
not  been  perfect.  Let  a  man  simply  have  this  testi- 
mony in  himself:  "I  am  ready  to  do  anything;  I 
am  willing  to  put  all  the  strength  I  have  into  my 
work.  Here  I  am,  what  there  is  of  me  ;  I  throw  it  all 
into  the  work."  Thus  let  him  have  some  use  for  his 
God ;  trust  him ;  believe  in  him.  What  is  the  use  of 
having  redemption  through  Jesus  Christ,  reconciliation 
and  love,  and  all  promise  and  hope,  and  then  going 
bowed  down  as  if  you  were  a  galley  slave  ?  Be  your- 
self, before  your  congregation,  what  you  want  them  to 
be  ;  and,  while  you  preach  the  love  of  Christ  for  human 
souls,  show  them  that  you  have  it,  by  your  confidence 
and  cheer.  For  there  is  no  time  when  a  man  ought  to 
sing  and  whistle  and  laugh  and  feel  so  happy  as  in  the 
coming  of  a  revival  of  religion.  In  Litchfield,  when  I 
saw  a  thunder-storm  coming  up,  I  used  to  run  into  the 
house  and  ask  my  mother  to  let  me  put  on  my  old 
clothes  and  go  out  in  the  rain  ;  for  nothing  was  so  grand 
to  me  as  being  out  in  the  tempest,  and  seeing  the  elms 
swayed  and  the  long  drought  broken  by  the  coming  on 
of  the  storm.  I  exulted ;  and  though  the  birds  were 


THE   CONDUCT   OF  REVIVALS.  287 

all  gone,  I  was  there  to  sing.  When,  after  a  drought  in 
the  congregation,  things  are  beginning  to  move  again, 
that  is  the  time  for  exultation.  You  need  not  be  afraid 
you  will  grieve  God's  spirit  away.  If  God's  spirit 
could  be  grieved  away,  it  would  have  been  done  long  ago, 
when  you  were  preaching  old  tinkered-up  sermons, 
repeating  for  the  five-hundredth  time  the  message  you 
did  n't  care  for,  first  or  last.  But  when  men  begin  to  be 
alive,  when  there  begin  to  be  some  real  affinities  with 
God  and  Christ,  then  is  not  the  time  to  be  anxious  and 
low-browed.  It  is  the  time  for  gladness.  In  this 
spirit,  a  man  can  preach  every  day.  He  can't  help  him- 
self. The  days  will  not  be  long  enough,  not  enough  of 
them  in  the  week,  for  him  to  preach,  provided  he  has 
this  impetus,  this  "  rejoicing  in  God."  You  know  Paul 
said,  —  he  had  a  double-barreled  gun  to  fire,  —  "  Eejoice 
in  the  Lord  ! "  and  when  he  fired  off  the  other  barrel, 
he  said,  "  Again  I  say,  Eejoice  ! "  This  buoyancy,  this 
cheerfulness,  this  hopefulness,  this  holy  confidence,  this 
radiant  gladness  in  the  minister,  will  have  a  direct  bear- 
ing on  the  production  of  the  effects  he  seeks  by  preach- 
ing. Under  ordinary  circumstances,  make  that  your 
main  reliance.  Preach  the  gospel,  —  the  power,  the 
nature,  the  love,  the  justice  of  God,  the  condition  of 
men,  their  sinfulness,  their  profound  danger ;  open  the 
future  to  them ;  let  them  see  into  what  they  are  going  ; 
analyze  their  character ;  measure  them  by  their  own 
standards,  and  show  them  how  low  their  condition  is  ; 
lift  the  standard  higher,  and  show  them  how  much  lower 
they  are,  until  you  come  up  to  the  ideal  and  measure 
them  through  and  through.  Deal  with  them  with  all 
the  earnestness  and  vigor  that  God  has  given  you. 


288  LECTUEES  ON  PEEACH1NG. 


DO  NOT  WOKK  BY  AUTHORITY. 

Then,  while  you  are  preaching  in  this  way,  remember 
that  while  you  are  master,  while  you  dominate  them, 
while  you  have  authority  over  them,  while  you  are 
zealous  for  the  truth  and  glory  of  God,  on  the  other 
hand,  —  strange  and  anomalous  condition,  —  you  have 
got  to  lie  down  before  them,  you  have  got  to  let  them 
walk  over  you,  and  be  their  servant.  When  you  go 
fishing,  you  have  no  authority  to  lay  upon  the  brooks. 
You  have  got  to  find  out  how  fish  are  to  be  caught,  and 
you  have  to  catch  them  in  that  way.  If  you  are  fish- 
ing for  trout,  you  go  to  work  one  way,  for  perch 
another,  and  for  bullheads  another,  and  you  bob  for 
eels.  You  may  throw  the  net  for  some,  and  some  you 
never  can  catch  in  a  net.  Some  you  never  can  catch 
with  a  set  line ;  and,  if  you  want  to  get  them,  you  must 
begin  afar  off.  I  have  seen  a  man,  when  he  came  into 
the  meadow  where  the  trout-brook  ran,  lie  down  some 
four  or  five  rods  before  he  got  to  the  brook ;  for,  said 
he,  "  The  very  jar  of  the  ground,  light  as  I  step,  will  be 
felt  by  them  "  ;  and  he  crawled  up  to  the  edge  of  the 
brook,  and  then,  lifting  himself  up,  he  threw  his  line  ; 
and  when  he  had  got  his  trout,  he  did  not  care  if  he 
had  crawled  an  acre  over.  Now,  a  man  that  fishes 
for  men  has  got  to  fish  for  them  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
You  cannot  put  your  royal  robes  on  and  walk  down 
the  street  and  have  men  come  out  and  cry,  "  Convert 
me !  convert  me ! "  You  have  got  to  treat  proud  men  in 
the  way  that  proud  men  have  to  be  treated.  Some  men 
come  to  you  that  you  did  n't  expect.  Some  will  hold 
back,  from  whom  you  expected  the  greatest  help.  You 


THE   CONDUCT   OF  REVIVALS.  289 

will  have  all  sorts  of  surprises,  and  your  business  is 
constant  and  various.  Suit  yourselves  to  emergencies  ; 
your  business  is  to  win  men.  Win  them  one  by  one,  one 
by  one.  I  don't  think  there  is  any  joy  so  great  in  this 
world  as  the  joy  of  working  in  a  revival,  when  a  man  is  in 
good  health,  and  when  there  is  a  genuine  work  of  grace 
going  on,  and  those  whom  he  respects  and  loves  are 
breaking  out,  one  by  one,  into  new  life  and  uttering 
their  joy.  I  don't  think  there  is  anything  this  side  of 
heaven  that  is  comparable  to  that ;  and  I  have  said,  in 
these  moments,  that  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth 
would  be  nothing  to  me  compared  with  the  royalty  I 
carried  in  my  heart,  when  I  saw  men  bowing  down  in 
this  way  and  coming  to  God.  It  is  reward  enough. 
A  man  never  seems  to  himself  to  have  so  little  person- 
ality, never  seems  to  care  so  little  about  himself,  to 
have  so  much  thought  of  God,  such  insight  into  the- 
ology, such  perception  of  moral  truths,  as  when  he 
stands  in  the  presence  of  men  roused  by  the  spirit  of 
God,  and  is  obliged  to  meet  their  case,  and  to  admin- 
ister to  their  wants.  It  is  astonishing  what  revelation, 
refreshment,  reinvigoration,  indoctrination,  inspiration, 
is  given  to  men  who  are  engaged  in  the  same  work  in 
which  God  is  engaged,  —  bringing  sons  and  daughters 
home  to  glory. 

VARIETY  OF  METHODS. 

I  arn  speaking  of  the  variety  of  instrumentalities 
that  can  be  employed.  I  have  given  an  emphasis  to 
preaching,  though  not  more,  I  think,  than  it  deserves. 
There  is  a  variety  of  other  instrumentalities  that  bear 
more  or  less  directly  upon  the  social  side ;  and  I  may 


290          LECTUKES  ON  PEE  ACHING. 

mention,  first,  the  multiplication  of  meetings  and 
prayer-meetings.  It  is  sometimes  well  that  a  meeting 
should  be  thrown  entirely  out  of  its  shackles  of  cus- 
tom. So  prone  are  we  to  run  in  ruts  that,  once  in  a 
while,  it  does  us  good  to  break  up  accustomed  forms 
and  methods,  and  make  the  meetings  stand  out  as  some- 
thing singular  and  peculiar.  Thus,  before  my  time,  in 
early  days  in  Brooklyn,  meetings  were  held  in  the  lec- 
ture-room of  the  church  that  stood  on  the  ground  where 
Plymouth  Church  is  now,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  they  were  thronged.  Well,  it  would  not  have  been 
wise,  the  next  year,  to  put  the  meetings  at  such  an  hour. 
But,  for  that  one  time,  the  very  singularity  of  it  kindled 
men,  and,  during  the  whole  of  that  season,  the  room  was 
not  large  enough  to  hold  the  people.  Something  out 
of  the  ordinary  way  serves  to  arouse  the  attention  of 
the  community  and  draw  their  interest. 

PROTKACTED    MEETINGS. 

Protracted  meetings  are  eminently  useful  in  the 
conduct  of  revivals  of  religion.  We  all  know  that  pro- 
tracted meetings  are  necessary  for  the  development 
of  the  social  in  other  things.  Political  campaigns  are 
one  continuous  series  of  protracted  meetings.  If  you 
wish  to  get  up  an  enthusiasm  in  anything,  it  must 
be  by  constant  repetition,  iteration.  Suppose  a  man 
should  undertake  to  make  a  sword,  and  should  come 
to-day  and  give  it  one  blow  and  go  home,  and  to-mor- 
row should  come  back  and  give  it  another  blow  and 
go  home,  and  so  on ;  how  long  would  it  take  a  man,  at 
that  rate,  to.be  an  artificer?  No;  he  must  repeat  his 
blows,  one  after  the  other,  while  the  iron  is  hot.  It  is 


THE   CONDUCT   OF   EEVIVALS.  291 

not  enough  that  a  man  should  go  to  meeting  once  on 
Sunday,  in  order  to  dp  certain  things. 

Thousands  of  men  are  not  able  to  carry  the  Sunday 
far  down  into  the  week.  They  need  to  have  their  im- 
pressions renewed. .  They  are  fitful,  feeble ;  they  don't 
generate  thought  easily  for  themselves.  There  are 
thousands  of  persons  not  able  to  generate  much  feeling 
for  themselves;  but  if  you  bring  them  into  a  mass- 
meeting  when  there  is  a  great  deal  of  feeling  about,  they 
catch  it  by  sympathy ;  it  helps  their  weakness :  and 
this  is  the  theory  of  protracted  meetings,  that  while 
the  strong  may  not  need  them,  they  are  of  bene- 
fit to  the  weak.  Their  poverty  of  thought  and  of 
feeling,  their  want  of  continuity  of  will,  are  met  in 
that  way ;  and  protracted  meetings  are  thus  great 
blessings. 

How  long  ought  they  to  be  protracted  ?  Just  as  long 
as  you  want  them.  Four-day  meetings  ?  Yes,  four  days, 
or  eight  days,  or  twelve  days,  or  sixteen  days,  or  twenty- 
four  days,  or  forty-eight  days.  You  own  all  the  time 
there  is,  and  you  can  keep  them  up  as  long  as  they 
are  profitable.  Suppose  my  boy  should  come  to  me  and 
ask,  "  Father,  how  long  ought  I  to  shake  the  chestnut- 
tree  ?"  "  As  long  as  the  chestnuts  fall ;  as  long  as  there 
is  a  chestnut  left,"  I  say  to  him ;  "  shake  till  you  can  get 
no  more  nuts.  As  long  as  they  fall,  club  it."  I  remem- 
ber, in  one  case,  carrying  on  a  protracted  meeting  in  my 
own  parish  for  over  eight,  nine,  ten  weeks ;  and  when, 
on  Sunday  morning,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  close  the 
series  of  meetings,  I  had  looked  over  the  congregation 
and  could  count  but  ten  that  were  not  hopeful  Christians, 
and  they  were  persons  for  whom  I  didn't  believe  it 


292          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

would  be  of  any  use  to  keep  the  meetings  going ;  so 
they  were  closed.  But  there  is  no  rule  about  it.  So 
long  as  protracted  meetings  are  useful  and  good,  em- 
ploy them  and  keep  them  up.  As  soon  as  they 
cease  to  be  beneficial,  quit  them ;  use  liberty  and  good 
sense. 

There  are  also  many  things  in  vogue  which  are  good 
in  some  communities  and  not  in  others,  and  are,  in 
fact,  matters  of  taste  and  discretion.  In  some  com- 
munities, it  is  the  custom  to  invite  persons  to  rise  for 
prayer  in  meetings.  I  have  seen  the  very  best  results 
from  that,  yet  I  never  could  do  it  in  my  own  congrega- 
tion. I  have  tried  it  a  few  times,  but  always  in  a  fal- 
tering way.  It  did  not  come  naturally  to  me,  and  it 
did  not  harmonize  with  my  style  of  'administration 
from  year  to  year.  Yet  I  have  seen  men  who,  in  times 
of  revival,  had  the  happiest  results  ensue  from  employ- 
ing that  method  of  bringing  people  to  a  decision.  The 
theory  is,  that  there  are  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
persons  floating  about  a  community  who  have  a  certain 
amount  of  moral  sensibility,  but  it  does  not  take  on 
any  form  of  will.  If,  however,  you  can  in  any  way  con- 
centrate that,  and  get  these  persons  to  commit  them- 
selves by  an  avowal,  then  their  pride  and  vanity,  and 
all  their  other  feelings,  will  tend  to  press  them  forward 
in  the  right  way ;  and  so,  by  public  commitment,  they 
are  put  in  a  better  position.  There  is  no  harm  in  it,  when 
it  works  favorably,  and  there  is  no  obligation  attaching 
to  its  use. 

The  same  is  true  of  "  anxious  seats."  A  great  deal 
has  been  said  against  them.  It  is  a  very  common  prac- 
tice in  Methodist  churches,  and  with  them  it  works 


THE   CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS.  293 

extremely  well.  There  is  no  reasonable  objection  to 
them.  But  if  there  is  anything  in  yourself,  anything 
in  the  character  of  your  people,  that  should  make  this 
inexpedient,  you  are  not  bound  to  try  it. 

INQUIRY-MEETINGS. 

Inquiry-meetings  are  of  universal  use,  but  more  in 
New  England  than  anywhere  else.  They  bring  the 
mind  of  the  minister  to  bear  directly  on  a  single  indi- 
vidual mind.  They  are  more  thorough ;  they  explore 
a  man,  they  find  out  his  habits,  they  learn  his  disposi- 
tion, they  apportion  the  truth  exactly  to  his  want. 
Preaching  to  a  whole  congregation  is  very  much  like 
giving,  in  time  of  pestilence,  hygienic  instructions  which 
every  man  niust  apply  for  himself;  but  an  inquiry- 
meeting  is  like  the  visit  of  the  physician.  He  takes 
each  man  by  the  pulse,  and  determines  the  medicine 
especially  needed.  I  have  always,  in  my  own  charge, 
dealt  very  largely  in  inquiry-meetings,  frequently  call- 
ing them  after  every  prayer-meeting;  not  disconnect- 
ing them,  not  making  them  formal,  but  saying,  "  If  any 
persons  wish  to  converse  with  me  after  meeting,  I  will 
remain."  And  after  the  Friday-night  meeting,  I  do 
the  same,  making  it  as  little  awful  as  possible ;  mak- 
ing it  social  and  genial  and  inviting ;  winning  people 
to  it. 

CAMP-MEETINGS. 

Camp-meetings  are  scarcely  within  your  probable 
range.  I  believe  in  them.  I  think  they  are  excellent 
in  new  countries,  and  under  certain  circumstances  they 
may  be  employed  in  old  communities.  Still,  they  are 


294          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

not  ordinarily  within  the  habits  of  our  sort  of  people. 
I  have  spent  some  very  blessed  days  in  camp-meetings  ; 
and  no  man  with  poetic  feeling,  an  eye  for  the  sub- 
lime, who  has  seen  a  genuine  camp-meeting,  can  ever 
revile  it.  The  night,  beautiful  in  its  radiance  overhead, 
the  trees  lit  up  with  lamps,  the  songs  of  Zion  sung  by 
three  thousand  people,  the  strange  mingling  of  light  and 
dark ;  and  after  the  great  meeting  is  over,  and  the  peo- 
ple have  retired  to  their  several  tents,  and  had  family 
prayers,  I  have  lain  in  my  little  bunk  and  heard,  in  the 
night,  six,  eight,  or  ten  little  meetings  going  on  all 
around  me.  One  dies  out,  another  dies  out,  and  anoth- 
er ;  there  are  only  three ;  another  follows,  and  there  are 
only  two  left ;  and  finally,  as  the  last  bell  strikes,  I  hear 
but  one.  After  that,  low  murmurings,  and  then  silence 
comes  down  over  the  great  camp,  and  all  is  still.  I 
think  the  life  is  almost  a  fairy  life.  It  is  enchanting. 
And  yet,  while  it  is  eminently  proper  for  a  sparse  pop- 
ulation in  a  new  country,  and  may  be  used  occasion- 
ally in  old  communities,  it  can  scarcely  corne  within 
the  range  of  your  probable  settlements. 

EVANGELISTS. 

Only  a  word  now  on  the  subject  of  evangelists.  In 
general,  in  the  induction  of  a  revival  of  religion,  it  is 
better  that  the  pastor  should  do  his  own  work.  It  is 
a  great  deal  better  for  you  to  be  the  father  and  the 
brother  of  your  people,  and,  taking  the  spirits  that  are 
in  sympathy  with  your  own,  to  do  your  own  visiting, 
get  up  your  own  meetings,  conduct  them,  and  have  the 
domestic  element,  as  it  were,  in  your  own  parish.  If 
you  need  further  force  than  this,  the  next  best  thing 


THE   CONDUCT  OF  KEVIVALS.  295 

is  to  call  in  your  brother  pastors.  There  should  be 
a  fellowship  in  churches  in  this  way,  and  you  should 
have  help  from  those  that  are  congenial.  But  there 
is  no  reason  why,  under  certain  circumstances,  you 
should  not  have  the  help  of  men  who  have  shown  them- 
selves to  be  gifted  by  the  Master  with  a  special,  talent 
for  developing  religious  feeling  in  the  community.  But, 
in  the  admission  of  evangelists,  or  revivalists,  all  may 
not  alike  be  useful  to  you.  There  are  many  men  whom 
I  trust,  and  whose  names  will  stand  far  above  mine  in 
heaven,  that  I  would  not  have  in  my  congregation  under 
any  circumstances.  There  is  a  genius  that  belongs  to 
every  church  development  which  has  its  own  individu- 
ality and  peculiarity.  "  But  if  you  introduce  a  revival- 
ist whose  whole  style  of  thought  is  different  from  your 
own,  and  in  antagonism  with  it,  you  will  introduce  a 
discordant  element."  Even  so ;  but  then  I  would  object 
to  none  because  they  are  evangelists. 

In  the  selection  of  help  of  this  kind,  I  should  say  one 
needs  to  be  very  judicious  in  calling  in  to  his  help  those 
that  are  professional  evangelists  or  revivalists.  I  inces- 
santly develop  in  my  people  hope,  courage,  faith.  I  work 
by  that  myself.  I  have  taught  them  to  work  by  it. 
My  congregation  is  genial  and  cheerful,  and  there  is  an 
atmosphere  there  of  fellowship  and  of  kindliness.  Now 
you  bring  in  a  man  that  preaches  harshly,  and  begins 
to  bear  down  upon  the  conscience  with  that  stern  sense 
of  awful  responsibility,  —  there  would  be  rebellion  in 
the  congregation ;  you  could  not  hold  them  to  it.  And 
therefore,  although  that  man  might,  in  another  relation, 
be  an  excellent  man,  do  much  good,  and  be  owned  and 
blessed  by  the  Master,  yet  he  is  not  adapted  to  that 


296          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

place.  There  are  a  thousand  wheels  that  are  just  as 
good  wheels  as  any  in  a  certain  watch,  but  the  differ- 
ence of  the  ten  thousandth  part  of  an  inch  would  make 
any  wheel  inappropriate  for  that  particular  watch.  *  The 
wheels  must  have  a  certain  relation  to  each  other,  or 
they  won't  keep  time.  And  so  of  the  genus  Evange- 
list. There  are  a  good  many  species ;  and  while  it  is 
best  to  do  your  own  work,  or  to  do  it  with  the  help  of 
a  brother  pastor,  still,  if  you  are  obliged  to,  call  in  an 
evangelist,  but  do  not  do  it  at  hap-hazard ;  call  one 
who  will  work  on  the  same  lines  and  in  harmony 
with  you.  That  will  be  likely  to  help  you;  and  he 
will  probably  leave  your  church  stronger  than  he 
found  it,  and  you  better  rooted  in  the  church  than 
when  he  came. 


QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS. 

Q.  Does  not  such  an  evangelist  as  you  have  described  meet 
the  wants  of  some  people  ? 

MR.  BEECHER. — Yes,  sir.  But  then,  suppose  he  meets 
the  wants  of  a  few  at  the  expense  of  a  great  majority  ? 
You  cannot  make  a  net,  you  know,  that  will  catch  trout, 
and  at  the  same  time  be  fit  to  catch  sharks ;  it  has  to  be 
so  very  thin.  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  adminis- 
tration can  take  every  sort  of  person.  I  think  it  is  to 
the  interest  of  every  Episcopal  church  in  the  com- 
munity that  there  shall  be  a  Congregational  church 
alongside  of  it ;  and  it  is  to  the  interest  of  every  Con- 
gregational church  that  there  shall  be,  in  the  immediate 
vicinity,  a  Presbyterian  or  a  Methodist  church :  that 
thus  elements  may  be  developed  outside  which  will 


THE   CONDUCT  OF  REVIVALS.  297 

affect  them  beneficially.  My  dear  old  father  used  to 
think  that  it  was  his  interest  to  keep  out  all  churches 
except  his  own  from  Litchfield.  The  moment  he  found 
a  Methodist  was  getting  up  a  fire,  he  would  go  and  put 
his  foot  on  it.  And  I  heard  him  say,  in  the  exuberance 
of  his  zeal  about  it,  "  Why  !  when  I  heard  the  Metho- 
dists were  getting  in,  in  such  a  district,  I  would  go 
over  there  and  I  would  preach  so  much  better  .than 
they  could,  that  they  couldn't  carry  their  meetings 
along ! "  Well,  that  was  about  the  spirit  of  that  time. 
If  I  had  my  choice,  I  would  never  have,  in  any  com- 
munity, less  than  one  good  representative  of  each  of  the 
various  forms  in  which  churches  develop  themselves ; 
no  church  can  develop  all  sides.  And  so  we  get  from 
the  formular  worship  of  the  hierarchical  churches  some 
elements  in  the  direction  of  veneration  and  taste,  that 
we  do  not  and  cannot  very  well  develop  in  our  con- 
gregational churches.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
certain  enthusiastic  social  elements  that  are  developed 
by  the  Methodists:  there  is  a  royal  —  jollity,  shall  I 
say  ?  —  a  heartiness  among  them,  that  it  is  very  hard 
to  get  in  a  Presbyterian  church.  But  there  is  an  in- 
tellectualization,  and  a  certain  element  of  righteous- 
ness and  ethicalness,  in  Congregational  and  Presby- 
terian churches  that  is  pre-eminently  fundamental  in 
a  community.  And  if  this  view  of  the  church  as 
the  body  of  Christ,  and  all  the  individual  churches 
parts  thereof  with  various  powers  and  functions, — 
just  as  a  single  church  is  represented  as  one  man, 
with  members  carrying  different  gifts,  —  if  this  view 
might  prevail,  sectarianism  would  be  disarmed  of 
its  sting. 

13* 


298          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  it  is  necessary  to  bring  men  to  a  decision 
in  regard  to  the  subject  of  religion  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Certainly  it  is.  But  decisions,  you 
know,  are  very  different  things  with  different  people. 
Decisions  take  place  in  connection  with  different  facul- 
ties. A  person  with  very  large  conscientiousness  and 
self-esteem  would  come  to  a  decision  that  would  meet 
together  with  a  snap  you  could  hear  all  over  town  ! 
But,  take  a  person  who  lacks  in  those  elements,  and 
who  is  genial  and  gentle,  and  he  will  decide  as  clouds 
do,  —  that  change  their  form  in  a  rosy,  round-edged,  soft, 
fiushy  way.  You  must  remember  that  decision  takes 
on  a  great  many  different  forms ;  but,  somehow  or 
other,  everybody  must  be  brought  to  the  point  of 
decision.  There  are  some  men  who  decide  as  an  engine 
flies  the  track,  and  there  are  others  who  go  off  on 
switches,  but  keep  to  the  track.  There  is  every  pos- 
sible variation. 

Q.  Don't  you  think  that  a  revival  has  a  tendency  to  bring  men 
to  a  quick  and  rapid  decision  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  —  Yes,  sir. 

Q.   What  is  the  philosophy,  or  reason,  or  cause,  of  that  ? 

MR.  BEECHER. —  The  reason  is  very  plain,  —  that  you 
are  causing  everything  to  converge  to  that  very  end. 
That  is  the  thing  you  are  exerting  your  whole  influ- 
ence for.  You  have  indoctrinated  them ;  they  have 
learned  their  duty;  they  have  learned  moral  govern- 
ment ;  they  have  learned  a  thousand  truths.  Now  you 


THE  CONDUCT  OF    REVIVALS.  299 

take  all  the  elements  that  they  have  been  gaining 
through  your  pastorate,  and  by  your  instructive  preach- 
ing, and  concentrate  these  upon  them.  This  reminds 
me  of  the  first  sermon  I  ever  preached  that  I  felt  did  any 
good  at  the  time.  I  was  in  despair,  at  Lawrenceburg. 
I  could  preach  to  interested  hearers.  I  hoped  that  I 
instructed  them  in  some  measure,  but  I  never  could 
carry  the  congregation  beyond  a  certain  degree  of  ex- 
citement. In  the  West,  they  always  had  two  or  three 
days  of  preaching  before  a  communion  season.  By  the 
preaching,  in  the  preparatory  days,  the  interest  would 
grow  and  deepen,  and  the  people  would  become  intense, 
and  come  on  the  Sabbath  day  to  partake  of  the  com- 
munion of  the  Lord's  Supper ;  but  by  Monday,  it  had 
all  gone  out  again,  and  there  was  nothing  left.  I 
wrould  think  the  church  was  getting  on  its  legs  to 
march,  and  it  would  fall  flat  again.  I  sent  out  for 

Dr. ,  and  asked  him  if  he  would  not  come  down 

and  help  me,  but  he  could  not.  I  sent  up  for  father, 
and  asked  him  if  he  would  n't  come  down,  and  he 
said,  "  No,  you  must  find  out,  yourself."  I  went  over 
there  to  Indianapolis,  and  my  heart  burned  within 
me.  I  could  not  be  preaching  for  nothing.  I  deter- 
mined to  sit  down  and  study  how  the  Apostles  did  it ; 
for,  though  I  was  not  an  apostle,  I  thought  possibly  I 
could  do  something,  in  some  way,  according  to  my  size 
and  shape.  I  took  the  book  of  Acts,  and  studied  Pe- 
ter's sermon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  I  analyzed  it,  I 
looked  at  it  all  the  way  through,  I  formed  a  theory  of 
the  way  in  which  the  effect  was  produced,  and  I  then 
constructed  a  sermon,  —  not  of  the  same  material,  be- 
cause Peter  was  preaching  to  a  Jewish  audience  and  I 


300          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

was  preaching  to  Hoosiers,  —  but  I  constructed  a  ser- 
mon on  the  same  principle,  as  I  understood  it.  I  was 
preaching  in  the  hall  of  a  little  academy  that  would  hold 
a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  people.  The  legisla- 
ture was  in  session,  and  a  good  many  lawyers  and  pub- 
lic men  were  there.  I  went  down,  on  Sunday  morning, 
as  anxious  as  a  boy  with  a  new  gun  would  be  to  try  and 
see  how  it  would  shoot.  I  fired  my  sermon,  and  there 
were  about  ten  men  awakened.  If  there  was  ever  any- 
body delighted,  I  was.  I  had  learned  how  to  preach.  I 
said  to  myself,  "  I  have  got  the  knack  of  aiming  now ; 
I  know  what  to  do."  Well,  the  trouble  was,  that, 
though  I  had  preached  that  sermon  of  that  sort,  I  had 
materials  to  preach  but  one  or  two  more,  and  then  I  ran 
out.  But  I  had  got  the  ideal,  after  all,  —  the  sense  of 
aiming  at  certain  points,  and  carrying  them  by  the 
direct  application  of  the  truth.  That  was  everything  to 
me.  My  horizon  enlarged  and  enlarged,  so  that  by  and 
by  I  came  into  the  possession  of  my  profession,  so  far  as 
I  have  ever  attained  it. 

Q.  You  have  said  a  good  deal  to  make  us  feel  very  kindly 
towards  all  denominations,  and  to  make  us  feel  that  it  is  very 
consistent  to  have  a  good  many  of  them  ;  but  how  do  you  get 
along  with  the  fact  that  in  so  many  of  our  towns,  East  and 
West,  especially  West,  every  denomination  considers  it  its  duty  to 
be  represented,  as  much  as  if  there  were  not  any  other  denomina- 
tion there,  and  so  they  all  become  weak  ? 

MR.  BEECHER.  — Yes,  that  is  a  misfortune  that  ought 
to  be  striven  against  as  far  as  possible.  I  know  we  had 
sixteen  denominational  churches  in  a  population  of 
four  thousand,  in  Indianapolis. 


THE   CONDUCT  OF  EEVIVALS.  301 

Q.  Did  you  consider  that  too  much  of  a  good  thing  ? 

ME.  BEECHEE.  —  I  did  consider  it  a  great  deal  too 
much,  but  it  did  not  argue  that  a  little  was  not  good. 
I  think  that,  in  making  a  sandwich,  a  little  mustard 
improves  it;  but  I  would  not  put  in  a  quart. 


XL 
BEINGING  MEN  TO   CHEIST. 

PUEPOSE,  this  afternoon,  to  confine  my 
remarks  principally  to  the  consideration  of 
what  may  be  called  the  clinical  practice 
in  revivals,  or  the  treatment  of  cases  as 
they  arise.  As  nearly  as  I  can  judge,  there  has  grad- 
ually come  to  be,  in  our  time,  a  very  great  difference  in 
the  way  in  which  persons  in  whom  religious  sensibility 
has  been  developed  are  treated,  as  compared  with  the 
custom  that  prevailed  twenty-five,  and  still  more  fifty 
years  ago.  I  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  venerable  and 
noble  ministers  who  lived  in  those  times  were  to  stand 
by  now,  retaining  their  views,  and  look  upon  the  de- 
velopment of  Christian  character  as  it  takes  place  in 
intelligent  churches  and  under  intelligent  ministra- 
tions, they  would  think  the  world  was  coming  to 
an  end ;  and  that  men  were  being  converted  entirely 
out  of  the  proper  way ;  and  that  the  church  was  likely 
to  be  filled  up  with  material  feeble  in  spiritual  life. 

And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  I  think  none  can  deny 
the  fact,  that  never  before  at  any  period  were  the 
churches  possessed  of  so  many  members  of  so  high  a 


BRINGING  MEN   TO   CHRIST.  303 

type  of  piety ;  and  never  was  piety  based  upon  better, 
clearer  knowledge  ;  and  never  did  Christian  emotion 
so  co-operate  with  Christian  activity  as  in  our  time. 

"While,  then,  it  would  seem  that  the  technical  pro- 
cesses with  which  men  are  treated  have  suffered  great 
change,  the  result  of  those  processes  in  the  hands  of  the 
Christian  ministry  in  our  day  is  the  production  of  a 
higher  type  of  Christian  character,  not  in  individuals, 
but  in  communities. 

I  purpose  to  consider  the  phenomena  of  conviction 
of  sin  and  of  conversion,  of  the  obtaining,  in  the  old 
language,  of  a  "  hope  "  ;  and  of  the  various  experiences 
that  stand  connected  with  these  things. 

THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  PRACTICE. 

I  admit  freely  that  there  is  no  such  attempt  now 
made,  that  there  are  no  such  lessons  in  working  with 
respect  to  the  promotion  of  conviction,  its  depth  and 
its  continuity,  as  prevailed  in  earlier  days.  In  work- 
ing, it  will  be  found  that  you  cannot  control  things, 
that  they  will  have  their  own  way ;  that  one  class  of 
your  hearers  will  develop  moral  sensibility  in  one  de- 
gree, another  class  in  another  degree ;  and  they  will 
assume  aspects  so  different  that  the  contrast  between 
the  extreme  cases  at  the  two  ends  of  the  scale  will 
make  it  seem  as  if  only  one  could  be  right  and  the 
other  must  necessarily  be  wrong.  There  has  always 
been  an  effort  to  countervail  this.  That  is,  there  has 
been  a  theory  that,  in  conviction  and  conversion  and 
the  entering  upon  the  Christian  life,  there  are  cer- 
tain great  marks  common  to  all;  and  therefore  there 
has  been  an  attempt  made  to  bring  men  up  to  certain 


304          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

tests,  and  to  compress,  as  it  "were,  experiences  into 
certain  molds ;  to  prevent  elasticity  and  liberty  of 
being,  if  one  may  so  say.  Or,  as  I  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  say,  the  old-school  men  refuse  to  allow  God 
his  own  sovereignty  in  the  way  of  convicting  and  con- 
verting men,  but  insist  that  the  sovereignty  should  be 
exercised  according  to  certain  prescribed  patterns,  de- 
duced from  experience.  It  will  not  be  difficult  for  men 
of  a  certain  moral  organization,  that  is,  men  organized  so 
as  to  be  susceptible  in  religious  directions,  who  have 
been  under  continuous  religious  culture,  who  are  appre- 
hensive of  the  truth,  candid,  fair,  —  it  ought  not  to  be 
difficult  to  produce  in  such  men,  and  that,  too,  by  very 
slight  and  gentle  means,  all  the  conviction  of  sin  that 
is  necessary,  all  that  is  of  any  use.  On  the  other 
hand,  persons  of  a  torpid  disposition,  slow  of  thought, 
not  easy  to  move  in  their  emotions  and  inward  life, 
will  require  a  pressure  Tar  greater.  So  it  falls  out  in 
preaching,  continually,  that  sermons  which  are  adapted 
to  rouse  the  lethargic  and  torpid  overact  upon  those 
that  are  sensitive  and  mercurial ;  and  that  allowances 
and  explanations  and  concessions  which  are  strictly 
right,  as  adapted  to  more  sensitive  and  advanced  na- 
tures, are  taken  advantage  of  by  those  lower  down ; 
so  that,  in  dealing  with  men,  there  is  no  one  single 
way.  There  is  to  be  incessant  adaptation  to  the  in- 
dividuals, or,  in  large  communities,  to  the  classes,  into 
which  individuals  fall. 

The  character  of  conviction  of  sin  will  very  largely 
depend  upon  the  theology  which  you  preach.  If  you 
preach  the  theology  of  Dr.  Emmons,  you  may  expect 
several  results.  The  first  is  that  you  will  lose  most  of 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  305 

your  congregation;  secondly,  those  who  remain  will 
be  very  hard  and  stubborn ;  and,  thirdly,  when  con- 
viction does  come,  it  will  come  like  the  rushing  of  a 
mighty  wind,  like  a  tornado,  like  an  earthquake,  break- 
ing up  the  foundations  of  things.  The  results  will  be 
in  some  such  proportion  all  the  way  through. 

If  you  preach  the  higher  forms  of  Calvinism,  if  you 
represent  God  as  he  is  represented  in  what  is  called 
hyper-Calvinism,  a  congregation  will  stand  it  and  hear 
you  through ;  and  if  you  bring  men  into  such  a  state 
that  they  feel  guilty  for  not  loving  such  a  God,  though 
it  may  take  a  good  deal  of  time,  yet  when  the  result 
does  come  on,  it  will  be  something  terrible,  and  will 
very  nearly  break  up  the  foundations  of  moral  con- 
sciousness, very  nearly  take  away  a  man's  reason.  If, 
however,  a  milder  type  —  ordinarily  considered  the  New 
England  type  of  Calvinism  —  be  presented,  so  that 
God  is  represented  as  supremely  just,  not  upon  im- 
possible conditions,  or  conditions  so  extraordinary  as 
scarcely  to  come  within  the  range  of  human  compre- 
hension or  feeling ;  if  you  represent  the  administration 
of  the  universe  as  in  the  hands  of  God,  who  maintains 
for  the  welfare  of  all  a  system  of  righteous  law,  who 
deals  with  men  in  such  a  way  as  to  address  himself  to 
their  reason  and  moral  consciousness,  —  it  ought  not  to 
be  either  a  long  process,  or  an  exaggerating  process. 
That  is,  feeling  ought  not  to  be  driven  to  such  wild 
extremes  in  the  process  of  satisfying  men  that  they 
are  guilty  for  disobedience  to  such  a  God  and  to  such 
laws. 

In  general,  the  more  the  element  of  coercive  gentle- 
ness —  if  I  may  say  so  —  the  element  of  paternity,  the 


306          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

element  of  Divine  love,  is  preached,  the  milder  will  be 
the  type  of  conviction,  but  the  more  efficacious,  the 
more  rapid  in  its  workings,  and  the  more  rich  and 
beneficent  in  its  results.  Let  me  guard  you,  however, 
against  supposing  that  the  infusion  of  a  larger 
element  of  love  in  the  Divine  character,  with  a  less 
element  of  justice,  will  work  beneficially.  I  would 
not  be  understood  to  teach  that  the  Divine  love  is  that 
vague  and  colorless  good-nature  and  kindness  which 
some  suppose.  In  my  thought,  love  carries  in  itself 
the  highest  truth  and  the  highest  justice,  and  the  most 
absolute  requisitions  of  right  and  duty ;  and  it  carries 
both  justice  and  truth  in  the  spirit  of  love.  The  at- 
mosphere differs  ;  the  elements  remain  the  same. 

DIVERSE   PERSONAL  ELEMENTS. 

The  variety  of  cases  which  occur  under  pungent  and 
faithful  personal,  applicatory  preaching,  is  very  great. 
I  cannot  attempt  to  mention  all,  but  will  take  some  of 
the  more  common  and  conspicuous.  There  will  hardly 
be  two  persons  awakened  alike.  You  must  not  expect 
it.  Take,  for  example,  the  awakening  of  children.  How 
impossible  it  is  for  a  child  to  be  affected  with  any  such 
sensibility,  or  any  such  introspect  or  retrospect,  or 
any  such  burden  of  conscience,  as  belong  to  an  adult, 
who  has  gone  through  life  organizing  selfishness,  culti- 
vating passions !  The  child  knows  none  of  these 
things.  You  can  say  to  a  child,  "You  are  a  great 
sinner  before  God,"  and  it  trembles ;  here  is  some  vague 
mystery,  it  does  not  know  what.  You  can  work  upon 
its  sensibility,  and  teach  it  that  it  must  give  up  its  heart 
to  Christ ;  and  it  may  in  a  helpless  way  lift  its  little 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  307 

hands  and  try  to  deliver  itself  up  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  by  and  by  be  told  that  it  now  may  be  happy, 
having  passed  through  all  the  stages.  Who  that  looks 
into  the  heart  and  reads  things  as  they  are  does  not 
see  what  a  work  has  been  wrought  upon  that  sensitive 
nature  ?  But  the  child  that  has  had  no  life,  whose 
experience  is  nearly  nothing,  how  can  you  expect  a 
manly  disposition  to  be  developed  in  that  ?  It  is  said 
that  jugglers  in  India  will  take  an  acorn  and  extempor- 
ize a  tree  before  your  eyes.  That  may  be  done  by  jug- 
glery, with  a  seed;  but  in  childhood  you  cannot  de- 
velop a  virile  experience. 

Among  the  mature,  conviction  will  generally  vary 
with  the  disposition.  In  one  class  reason  will  be  pre- 
dominant, because  that  is  the  structure  of  their  mind. 
Another  class  will  not  reason  much,  but  they  will  be 
chiefly  influenced  by  emotion,  because  that  is  the 
structure  of  their  nature.  Some  persons  will  have  a 
light  playing  about  their  conceptions  of  right  and 
wrong,  which  shows  that  they  have  the  element  of 
imagination  largely  developed,  and  they  get  the  view 
which  imagination  alone  enables  the  reason  to  give 
of  moral  qualities,  of  right  and  wrong,  of  the  present 
and  of  the  future. 

DEGREES   OF  INTENSITY. 

All  these  elements  you  will  find  developed  under 
any  searching  ministry.  Their  intensity  will  depend 
upon  the  constitution  of  a  man's  mind  and  upon  the 
history  of  his  life.  I  should  suppose,  for  instance,  that 
a  man  with  a  slow  and  torpid  moral  sense  never  could 
arrive  at  any  vivid  convictions.  The  Divine  Spirit 


308          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

that  shines  alike  upon  all  the  earth  does  not  make 
all  things  upon  the  earth  alike  beautiful;  nor  does 
it  change  the  inertness  and  sleep  in  all  plants  at  the 
same  time ;  nor  does  it  produce  a  like  development  in 
all.  So  the  Divine  influence,  working  through  the  truth 
that  falls  upon  the  human  heart,  acts  according  to  the 
laws  of  that  human  heart,  and  men  that  are  slow  of 
belief,  slow  of  intelligence,  torpid  of  feeling,  will  come 
up  but  a  little  way  comparatively.  If  you  wait  for  them 
to  develop  paroxysmal  feeling,  if  you  have  an  impres- 
sion that  no  man  can  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
unless  he  comes  in  with  a  sweep  and  a  whirlwind  of 
experience,  you  will  find  yourself  overmatched  perpetu- 
ally, and  you  will  do  one  of  two  things ;  you  will  either 
throw  them  back  in  despair  upon  the  world,  or  else 
lead  them  to  simulate  an  experience,  so  that  they  will 
unintentionally,  but  really,  come  in  upon  a  false  basis. 
Understand  that  every  man  will  have  an  experience 
corresponding  to  his  organization  and  his  nature.  In 
some  there  will  be  very  little  feeling,  slowly  educed  ; 
in  others,  very  much  ;  and,  as  respects  that,  one  may  be 
just  as  good  as  the  other. 

The  wickedness  —  that  is,  the  overt  wickedness — of 
a  man's  life  will  also  have  much  to  do  with  his  sense 
of  conviction.  I  mean  that  conscience  is  largely  formed 
by  the  public  institutions  of  society,  by  what  prevails 
in  the  domestic  circle,  by  what  are  understood  to  be 
the  civic  virtues  ;  and  a  man  whose  conscience  is  not 
merely  instructed  from  the  pulpit,  but  has  also  been 
formed  in  civil  affairs  and  social  relations,  will  have  an 
experience  the  proportions  and  character  of  which  will 
be  taken  somewhat  from  this  education.  So,  if  a  man 


BRINGING   MEN   TO   CHEIST.  309 

has  been  a  drunkard,  a  licentious  man,  a  thief,  a  pirate, 
or  a  liar,  and  has  come  home  and  been  brought  under 
the  power  of  religious  teaching,  and  has  something  of 
manly  nature  yet  left  in  him,  —  when  the  truth  falls 
on  that  man,  you  might  well  suppose  that  he  would 
have  a  concrete  conviction  of  sin  ;  a  conviction  that  he 
is  a  desperate  sinner.  But  his  idea  of  a  desperate  sin- 
ner would  not  be  that  he  had  broken  the  law  of  God, 
but  that  he  was  a  liar,  that  he  was  a  robber,  or  a  pirate, 
or  a  lewd  man,  or  a  drunkard.  It  would  fasten  itself 
upon  some  of  those  physical,  external  forms  of  sin ;  and 
while  you  might  attempt,  by  and  by,  to  enlarge  his 
view,  it  would  not  be  best  to  do  it  before  you  had 
brought  him  forward  into  a  Christian  life. 

PRACTICAL  INFLUENCES   TO   BE  USED. 

While,  however,  I  say  that  you  should  accept  the 
development  as  it  comes,  in  respect  to  the  general 
character  and  in  respect  to  its  depth  and  strength,  let 
me  also  say  that  there  is  an  interference  which  you  can 
practice,  a  guidance  which  you  can  effectually  furnish. 
You  can  do  it  by  personal  intercourse  with  your  people. 
You  can  do  it,  but  not  very  well,  by  general  preaching. 
For  example,  you  will  find  in  a  very  large  class  of  easy- 
going people,  ordinarily  well  doing,  according  to  the 
current  opinions  of  society,  a  state  of  moral  feeling  that 
is  susceptible  of  great  excitement.  You  preach  to  them 
the  Divine  law  and  the  claims  of  God  upon  them,  show 
them  that  they  have  been  great  sinners  against  holiness, 
and  they  will  all  begin  to  feel  that  they  sinned  in  Adam 
and  that  they  have  sinned  since  Adam.  They  feel  that 
they  are  very  guilty  and  need  change  of  heart,  and  they 


310         LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

will  put  you  off  with  that.  Now,  if  a  woman  is  a  ter- 
magant, you  must  make  her  conceptions  of  sin  include 
that  element.  If  a  man  is  cold,  hard,  proud,  it  will  not 
do  for  him  to  confess  Adam's  sin,  nor  any  of  the  generic 
sins.  His  sense  of  sin  must  cover  his  particular  dispo- 
sition. If  you  find  a  man  notoriously  stingy,  mean,  and 
avaricious,  no  matter  if  he  shakes  in  convulsions  for  his 
sins  against  God,  that  man  must  have  his  convictions 
kept  down  until  he  comes  to  the  question  of  avarice. 
In  short,  generic  conviction,  instead  of  personal  con- 
viction, will  not  answer ;  and  it  is  part  of  your  business 
to  produce  the  latter.  If  you  care  to  have  men  really 
changed,  if  there  is  to  be  something  more  than  eccle- 
siastical translation,  if  there  is  to  be  a  personal  reno- 
vation, by  which  a  nature  is  to  be  sweetened  into 
benevolence,  by  which  a  sodden  and  sordid  nature  is 
to  be  exalted  into  some  of  the  elements  of  nobility,  by 
which  a  coarse  and  physical  nature  is  to  reach  up  into 
spiritual  realms,  —  you  must  search  out  men  and 
make  them  search  themselves,  and  find  out  where 
there  is  too  much  or  too  little ;  and  their  sense  of  sin 
must  be  brought  personally  home  to  them,  so  that  all 
these  elements  shall  be  distinctly  in  their  consciousness, 
when  they  make  their  submission  or  choice  before  God. 
That  brings  matters  to  a  practical  reality,  and  into  such 
a  form  that  you  will  avoid,  or  tend  to  avoid,  bringing 
men  into  the  church  under  strong  general  impressions, 
who,  after  all,  have  not  changed  materially  in  those 
individual  elements  of  character  that  fashion  their 
life. 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  311 


THE  APOSTOLIC  THEORY. 

The  question  is  not  an  unimportant  one :  How  thor- 
ough ought  convictions  of  sin  to  be  ?  And  that  leads 
me  to  say  that  there  seems  to  have  been,  in  times  past, 
an  impression  that  a  conversion  was  more  thorough  in 
proportion'  to  the  depth,  if  I  may  say  so,  or  quantity  of 
feeling  which  had  been  expended  in  the  beginning,  and 
that  the  conversion  was  probably  a  shallow  one  in 
which  a  man  had  not  felt  immensely  and  intensely. 

I  remember  very  well  the  time  when  four  or  five 
weeks  was  a  moderate  term  for  a  man  to  go  under  con- 
viction of  sin.  I  remember  when  it  was  supposed  that 
general  attention  would  occupy  a  week  or  ten  days,  and 
then  would  come  seriousness,  which  would  occupy  sev- 
eral days  more ;  then  convictions  of  sin  in  their  lighter 
form  would  come,  and  at  last  wrestling  convictions,  and, 
finally,  the  crisis ;  and  if,  in  my  childhood,  a  man  was 
converted  in  four  weeks,  it  was  almost  thought  an  in- 
sufficient time.  It  was  against  such  notions  as  those 
that  my  father  used  to  contend.  He  was,  in  some  sense, 
a  reformer  in  those  matters. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  we  go  clear  back  to  the 
apostolic  age,  we  find  men  gathered  together  in  great 
crowds,  receiving  the  truth,  and  under  a  single  sermon 
breaking  down  and  crying  out,  "  What  shall  we  do  to 
be  saved?"  and  before  they  departed  becoming  so 
transformed  that  the  Apostles  considered  them  worthy 
of  church-membership. 

Here,  then,  are  the  two  extremes.  In  the  first 
preaching  of  Christianity,  it  was  understood  that  when 
a  man's  character  and  condition  were  clearly  presented 


312          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

before  him,  and  the  question  of  his  adhesion  to  Christ 
was  pressed  upon  him,  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  deter- 
mine then  and  there,  and  if  his  determination  was 
right,  and  was  carried  into  practice,  the  feeling  that  led 
to  it  was  enough.  In  the  old  New  England  practice,  the 
impression  was  that  a  long-continued,  but  especially  a 
deep  and  thorough,  conviction  of  sin  was  very  desirable. 

CHANGE   OF  LIFE  THE  EEAL  AIM. 

What,  after  all,  is  the  object  of  sorrow  ?  What  is 
the  use  of  it  ?  What  is  the  use  of  pain,  when  we  break 
a  law  ?  To  bring  us  back  into  obedience  to  law ; 
simply  to  rectify  that  which  created  the  sorrow ;  and 
to  produce  such  an  impression  upon  the  memory  that 
we  shall  not  be  likely  to  transgress  again.  Sorrow  is 
not  like  a  dye- vat,  in  which  a  man  ought  to  lie  over- 
night in  order  to  bring  him  a  conviction  of  sin.  If  a 
captain  wishes  to  leave  port,  and  the  wind  is  blowing  ten 
miles  an  hour,  he  heaves  up  the  anchor,  for  this  is 
enough  to  get  him  far  out  of  port.  If  he  gets  out  on  a 
breeze  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  it  is  as  good  as  if  he  went 
out  on  one  of  twenty.  If  it  requires  twenty  pounds  of 
steam  to  work  an  engine  properly,  then  all  above  that 
is  waste.  Every  grain  of  powder  beyond  what  is  ne- 
cessary to  throw  a  ball  where  you  want  it  to  go  is 
superfluous.  And  every  particle  of  feeling  you  expend 
of  this  kind,  —  regretful,  sorrowful,  remorseful,  all  that 
strange  medley  of  emotion,  and  all  that  which  we  do 
not  now  analyze,  which  goes  to  constitute  what  is  called 
conviction  of  sin,  —  the  elements  of  reason,  of  imagi- 
nation, of  memory,  —  all  the  various  sensibilities  that 
play  and  interplay ;  of  all  this,  every  particle  you  ex- 


BRINGING   MEN  TO   CHRIST.  313 

pend  more  than  just  enough  to  make  a  man  say,  "  I  am 
wrong,  I  will  do  right,"  is  unnecessary.  Just  so  soon 
as  you  get  enough  feeling  to  bring  about  the  change, 
you  have  accomplished  your  purpose.  Everything  more 
is  so  much  surplusage. 

DIFFERENCES  OF  DISPOSITION. 

This  is  an  important  consideration,  because,  in  the 
first  place,  there  are  many  persons  who  are  thought  not 
to  be  safe  Christians,  because  they  are  mild,  gentle,  and 
not  liable  to  strong  feeling  of  any  kind.  I  recollect  an 
elder  in  my  church  in  Indianapolis,  when  I  was  a  Pres- 
byterian, whose  whole  life,  I  think,  never  had  an  inch 
of  undulation  in  it.  I  think  he  would  smile  gently 
when  he  married  his  wife.  I  think  he  would  smile 
gently  when  he  buried  her.  He  possessed  a  perfectly 
even,  tranquil  nature.  Now  the  idea  that  this  man 
should  be  convulsed  with  any  feeling  was  absurd.  And 
when  he  came  into  the  church  he  said,  "  I  don't  remem- 
ber that  I  have  ever  had  any  exercise  of  feeling  " ;  and 
persons  were  rather  slow  to  receive  him.  Some  men 
thought  there  should  be  more  exercise  of  feeling.  Still, 
he  was  one  of  the  best  of  men  I  ever  had  in  the  church, 
although  he  glided  in  almost  without  emotion.  Spring 
came,  in  his  case,  without  any  breaking  up  and  freshets 
and  storms. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  persons  whose 
consciences  are  never  satisfied.  They  hear  a  man  tell 
how  the  Lord  led  him  into  the  kingdom  with  terrible 
manifestations  of  feeling  and  with  anguish  and  suffer- 
ing ;  how,  when  he  went  into  a  monthly  meeting  where 
a  revival  was  going  on,  conviction  struck  him  and  he 

VOL.    II.  14 


314          LECTUKES  ON  PREACHING. 

went  home ;  how  lie  could  find  no  rest,  how  he  could  not 
attend  to  his  business,  he  was  so  wretched ;  how  he 
kept  it  from  his  wife  for  a  week,  and  by  and  by  such 
anguish  and  agony  came  that  he  could  not  eat  or  sleep, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  soul  and  body  would  be  rent 
asunder ;  how  he  prayed  and  prayed,  and  at  last,  as  he 
prayed,  he  saw  a  vision  as  a  light  in  the  heavens,  and 
he  called  out,  "  0  Lord !  0  Lord ! "  —  and  there  was  a 
terrible  wrestling,  and  something  seemed  to  flood  him 
with  the  glow  of  peace,  and  he  came  out  of  his  darkness 
and  began  to  cry,  "  Hallelujah  !  hallelujah ! "  and  was 
so  happy!  N"ow,  all  that  is  genuine.  It  is  genuine 
\  for  him ;  not  for  me,  not  for  you.  But  a  man  hears 
[this,  —  a  man  who  has  been  endeavoring  to  walk  hon- 
estly with  God  and  honestly  with  men ;  who  really  has 
the  spiritual  life  developed  in  him ;  whose  soul  domi- 
nates his  body;  who  is  disinterested,  and  is  always  work- 
ing upward  toward  higher  and  higher  degrees  of  excel- 
lence, and  never  has  had  this  dramatic  experience,  this 
pictorial  conviction  of  sin ;  with  whom,  indeed,  it  has 
always  been  a  matter  of  doubt  whether  he  was  really 
converted  or  not,  —  and  he  says,  "  If  I  had  only  had 
tliat,  I  should  feel  that  I  had  a  ticket,  a  pass  that  would 
be  valid." 

CONVICTION   ONLY  A  MEANS  TO   CONVERSION. 

A  man  who  sleeps  on  the  ground-floor  of  a  tene- 
ment house  is  roused  in  the  night  by  the  cry  of  fire. 
He  springs  up,  gathers  his  wife  and  children  about 
him,  attempts  to  rush  down  the  main  hall-way,  and 
meets  the  flames  coming  up.  Beaten  there,  he  runs  to 
the  rear  stairs,  —  up  comes  the  bulging  smoke.  He 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  315 

flies  to  the  next  story,  and  after  him  comes  the  flame, 
roaring  and  crackling  at  his  heels.  From  story  to  story 
he  runs,  until  he  is  driven  to  the  roof,  while  all  below 
him  is  a  sea  of  flame.  He  is  about  to  give  up,  and  feels, 
"  I  am  a  dead  man,  and  my  household  are  lost ! "  when 
a  voice  from  the  gable  hails  him.  A  ladder  is  thrown 
up.  He  hands  over  his  children  and  his  wife,  and 
finally  he  himself  gets  down  and  escapes.  Everybody 
congratulates  him.  "  "Wonderful  escape ! "  —  and  so  it 
was  a  wonderful  escape.  No  wonder  he  remembers  it. 
And  so  he  is  narrating  it ;  and  a  young  man  says,  "  I 
slept  on  the  ground-floor  in  that  building,  and  when 
the  engines  came  thundering  along,  I  jumped  up  and 
dressed  myself,  got  all  my  clothes  and  valuables,  and 
quietly  walked  out  at  the  lower  door  and  went  away. 
But  if  that  man's  experience  is  called  escaping,  I  fear  I 
have  not  escaped ! " 

So  it  is  in  respect  to  changes  that  are  produced  in 
men's  minds.  The  point  is  this,  —  that  a  man  shall 
be  born  again ;  that  there  shall  be  a  new  arrangement, 
if  I  may  say  so,  a  crystallizing  of  particles,  a  transfor- 
mation which  consists  in  the  shifting  of  sovereignty  from 
the  bottom  of  the  head  to  the  top.  Whereas,  before, 
the  animal  spirit  ruled  the  man,  now,  through  Jesus 
Christ  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  all  the 
upper  part  of  a  man's  nature  is  vitalized,  comes  into 
dominancy,  and  controls  the  lower.  And  whatever 
process,  whether  long  or  short,  with  visions  or  without 
them,  with  literalness  or  imaginativeness,  with  deep  or 
little  feeling,  —  whatever  brings  a  man  into  that  condi- 
tion, is  enough.  For  conviction  of  sin  is  cause  merely. 
If  it  produces  effect,  that  is  all  you  want  \  all  the  ex- 
aggerating conception  is  needless. 


316          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


PRESENT  CHRIST  AS  THE  STANDARD. 

Then,  if  that  be  the  object  of  conviction  of  sin,  of 
course  all  your  preaching  will  tend  to  the  development, 
the  measuring,  of  a  man's  character,  so  that  he  shall  be 
able  to  determine  continually  that  he  is  sinful.  You 
will,  in  other  words,  hold  out  the  standard  of  life,  — 
not  an  exaggerated  one,  or  an  ideal  or  imaginative  one, 
but  a  real  standard  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus,  as  laid  clown 
in  the  New  Testament.  Measure  a  man  within  and 
without,  his  understanding,  his  sensibilities ;  hold  this 
measure  up  before  him  with  such  continual  appeals  to 
his  practical  knowledge  of  himself  that  he  will  come 
to  the  conviction  that  he  is  altogether  sinful.  When 
I  say  "  altogether  sinful,"  I  do  not  mean  total  de- 
pravity, a  very  infelicitous  phrase,  framed  under  a  phi- 
losophy in  which  we  do  not  believe,  the  technicalities 
of  which  we  should  abandon.  But  I  believe  there  is 
not  a  single  faculty  in  a  man's  nature  that  does  not 
sin.  I  believe  in  the  correlation  of  faculties.  They  are 
all  put  into  false  relations  with  each  other  in  the  prac- 
tical matters  of  life ;  and  man  is  in  a  state  of  antag- 
onism towards  God,  towards  the  Divine  law  or  order. 

HELP  MEN  TO  ACTIVELY  CHOOSE. 

Now,  when  you  have  produced  that  impression  upon 
your  congregation,  the  question  becomes  simply  one  of 
transition.  They  are  satisfied  that  they  have  lived 
wrong ;  that  there  is  a  better  way.  The  point,  in  the 
next  place,  is  how  to  determine  choice.  I  speak  with 
profound  feeling  here.  My  own  experience,  through 
many  stormy  years,  is  wrapped  up  in  this  matter.  I 


BRINGING  MEN   TO   CHRIST.  317 

feel  the  profoundest  pity  for  those  who  are  so  vaguely 
stimulated  by  preaching,  but  not  taught  or  led  to 
know  what  to  do.  As  a  little  child,  I  was  so  sus- 
ceptible of  moral  impressions  that  I  don't  remember  a 
year  of  my  life,  after  I  was  seven  or  eight  years  old, 
that  I  was  not  under  conviction  of  sin ;  that  I  did  not 
go  about  with  a  feeling  of  sadness,  —  a  feeling  that  I 
was  in  danger  of  exile  from  heaven,  all  because  I  was  a 
sinner,  which  I  did  not  want  to  be.  There  were  times 
when  it  amounted  to  positive  anguish.  There  were 
times  of  revival  in  my  academic  and  college  course,  be- 
fore I  was  a  member  of  the  church,  when,  if  I  could 
have  had  the  simple  truth  as  it  now  appears  to  me,  in 
less  than  an  hour,  yes,  in  a  moment,  I  should  have 
come  on  to  ground  of  peace  and  trust,  of  faith  and 
love,  and  therefore  of  hope  and  courage. 

BE  SPECIFIC,  NOT  VAGUE. 

It  is  to  the  last  degree  important,  therefore,  that,  in 
dealing  with  men,  you  should  know  exactly  what  the 
point  of  difficulty  is.  Do  not  arouse  in  your  congrega- 
tion the  feeling  that  they  are  in  danger,  and  then  leave 
them  to  hold  up  their  hands  vaguely  for  something, 
they  don't  know  what. 

But  this  belonged  to  the  old  system,  to  the  idea  that 
God  acted  in  his  sovereignty  upon  the  hearts  of  men 
as  he  would,  when  he  would,  where  he  would;  and 
that  man  could  do  nothing  but  wait  on  God.  In  past 
times,  a  man  suffered  more  just  in  proportion  as  he 
was  better,  —  that  is,  more  sensitive  in  conscience, — 
and  as  he  yearned  for  something  higher  and  better ;  as 
he  added  all  the  susceptibility  of  a  poet  to  all  the 


318          LECTURES  ON  PEEACHING. 

intensity  of  the  moralist;  and  was  left  groping  for 
light,  without  any  knowledge  of  what  to  do  or  where 
to  go? 

Under  such  circumstances,  how  did  a  man  get  into 
the  kingdom  of  God  ?  A  great  many  men  did  n't  get 
in.  They  became  weary  and  fell  back.  A  great  many 
got  in  because,  in  some  way  or  other,  under  the  general 
stimulus  of  singing  and  social  meetings,  there  did  come 
a  vision  of  Christ  that  their  souls  embraced.  It  filled 
them  with  joy,  and  they  passed  in. 

I  sometimes  think  people  get  into  heaven  as  a  blind 
man  gets  into  a  garden.  He  happens  to  strike  the  first 
picket  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  gate,  and  he  turns 
to  the  next  one  to  the  right,  and  the  next,  and  he  finally 
goes  around  the  whole  enclosure,  butting  against  every 
single  picket,  though  he  gets  in  at  last,  because  finally, 
in  the  order  of  time,  he  reaches  the  gate.  In  other 
cases,  a  man  may  come  in  by  the  first  intention.  What 
histories  might  be  written  of  the  experiences  of  Chris- 
tians !  Talk  about  the  Inquisition !  The  Inquisition 
has  no  chambers  in  which  there  has  been  such  suffering 
as  in  the  silent  chambers  of  unrecorded  spiritual  his- 
tories, —  such  excruciating  sorrows,  such  useless  suffer- 
ings !  If  you  don't  know  how  to  lead  men  into  light, 
don't  plunge  them  into  darkness. 

THE  TWO  ELEMENTS   OF  ACTION. 

What,  then,  is  the  thing  men  are  called  to  do  when 
they  are  awakened  and  become  conscious  of  their  wrong 
estate  ?  It  seems  to  me  there  are  simply  two  elements 
in  it.  One  is  the  presentation  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  manifest  idea  of  God.  Jesus  Christ,  as 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  319 

he  walked  on  earth,  is  to  be  presented  to  man.  That 
is  the  pattern  of  himself  which  God  wishes  men  to  have 
before  them  when  they  determine  whether  or  not  they 
will  serve  him.  It  is  in  that  point  of  view  that  I  con- 
demn Calvinism  with  such  severity,  if  not  acerbity. 
When  I  take  Calvin's  view  of  God  and  put  it  by  the  side 
of  Jesus  Christ,  who  suffered  that  men  might  not  suffer, 
who  came  to  shed  his  blood  and  die  that  men  might 
be  redeemed,  —  when  I  put  this  by  the  side  of  the  sys- 
tematic God  that  Calvin  has  erected,  I  feel  an  unspeak- 
able horror,  a  shock  in  my  whole  moral  being.  I  say 
to  my  people:  Whatever  may  be  the  logical  excel- 
lence of  that  system, — and  it  is  a  wonderful  system 
of  ratiocination  and  skillful  construction,  —  whatever 
may  be  the  general  truth  of  it,  one  thing  is  certain,  that 
the  cross  of  Christ  bore  up  no  such  conception  of  God 
as  that  which  is  given  to  us  in  the  Calvinistic  represen- 
tation of  God.  I  take,  therefore,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  manifestation  of  God.  I  take  the  life  of  Christ 
as  it  was  upon  earth,  and  hold  it  up  to  my  people,  and 
say:  Here  is  the  companionable  God,  who  would  in 
heaven  do  just  as  he  did  on  earth,  only  more  gloriously 
and  abundantly.  As  he  himself  said,  "  If  ye,  being  evil, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children,  how 
much  more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give 
good  tilings  to  them  that  ask  him." 

Now  see  what  he  was  among  men.  See  how  he 
took  them  to  his  arms  of  helpfulness !  What  humility  ! 
What  patience !  What  gentleness,  sweetness,  instruc- 
tiveness,  long  loving  !  What  balm  in  his  sympathy  ! 
What  healing  power  in  the  application  of  his  loving 
heart  to  the  hearts  of  those  that  were  around  him  I 


320          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

The  presentation  of  Christ's  character  as  the  sinner's 
friend  is,  beyond  all  other  things,  the  most  sublime 
and  the  most  glorious.  That  rny  soul  knows  right 
well.  I  had  wandered  through  years  and  years,  try- 
ing to  submit  to  a  theological  God,  trying  to  submit 
to  a  catalogue  of  attributes.  I  had  gone  through  the 
seminary,  and  had  nearly  completed  my  theological 
course,  inwardly  unbelieving.  It  was  my  duty  to  take 
a  Bible-class.  I  did  it  unwillingly.  I  undertook  to  do 
what  the  German  commentators  did,  with  whom  I  was 
then  familiar.  They  undertook  to  interpret  the  New 
Testament  just  as  they  found  it,  without  saying  that 
they  believed  in  it  any  more  than  in  Homer  and  Virgil. 
I  took  the  subject  of  the  relations  of  Christ  to  men  out 
of  the  four  Evangelists  and  presented  it  to  my  class  in 
that  way ;  and,  as  I  went  on,  gathering  everything  of 
Christ  as  a  conversationist,  Christ  as  a  personal  friend, — 
I  remember  the  brightest  day  that  ever  dawned  on  this 
earth,  since  moon  and  stars  shone  upon  it,  was  that 
morning  while  I  was  studying  the  thought  of  Christ, 
and  it  flashed  .upon  me,  as  the  result  of  all  the  facts 
and  instances  that  I  had  been  selecting,  that  Christ 
was  one  who  by  perfect  holiness  and  purity  knew  how 
to  be  sorry,  not  for  the  man  who  was  converted,  but  for 
the  unconverted  man,  because  he  was  sinning.  He  was 
sorry,  as  the  nurse  or  the  mother  is  sorry  for  the  child 
because  it  is  sick.  It  dawned  upon  me,  "  This  is  God, 
to  be  sorry  for  imperfection ;  this  is  God,  to  be  sorry 
that  men  are  in  the  bondage  of  sin  and  in  the  thrall  of 
death ;  and  the  resource  and  power  of  the  Divine 
nature  are  offered  to  those  that  are  bad  to  help  them 
out  of  their  badness." 


BRINGING  MEN   TO   CHRIST.  321 

So  there  had  been  my  trouble  always.  I  could  not 
make  myself  good  enough  for  God  to  take  me ;  and 
I  spent  hours,  yes,  I  squandered  days  and  days,  in  fruit- 
less prayer  and  agonizing  search  to  find  a  God  who 
would  do  something  for  me,  or  to  find  that  experience 
that  was  to  come  radiant  down  through  the  atmosphere 
and  lodge  upon  my  soul.  I  could  never  find  it.  But 
when  I  found  that  the  nature  of  love  is  to  make 
lovely  things ;  that  the  nature  of  purity  is  ip  make 
uncleanness  pure;  that  the  nature  of  holiness  is  to 
inspire  holiness  among  men ;  and  that  God's  govern- 
ment is  to  take  the  poor,  the  needy,  and  feeble  in 
his  arms  to  help  them,  loving  them  all  the  time 
while  he  is  doing  it,  to  help  them  to  himself,  —  I  no 
longer  suffered,  for  I  had  found  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven. 

Now,  present  that  character  of  Christ  to  men,  saying, 
"  Do  you  want  this  Christ,  do  you  want  this  God  ?  Is 
this  your  choice  ? "  I  think  you  will  find  them  coming 
quick  and  thick  around  such  presentations  of  Jesus 
Christ,  to  say,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God  ! "  Everything 
that  is  good  in  man  responds  to  it.  Everything  that 
is  base  in  man  slinks  away,  dishonored  and  disgraced, 
if  it  obstructs  the  heart's  allegiance  to  such  a  God  as 
that. 

THE  IDEAL  MANHOOD. 

Then,  secondly,  you  want  to  present  the  character  of 
typical  manhood  as  laid  down  in  the  New  Testament. 
Are  you  prepared  to  say,  to-day,  "  I  will  accept  and  love 
that  blessed  Saviour,  and  that  life  and  that  character 
shall  be  my  search  from  this  day  forward  to  the  end  of 
my  life  "  ?  When  a  man  says,  "  Yes,  that  I  take,  and 
H*  u 


322          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

that  I  acknowledge  to  be  hereafter  iny  life,"  the  man  is 
a  Christian.  What  is  a  Christian  ?  A  saint  ?  Yes,  I 
hope  so,  though  it  is  tough  for  some  saints  in  the  calen- 
dar. But  so  is  a  man  a  Christian  out  of  whose  mind 
has  leaped  that  purpose.  When  is  a  seed  a  plant? 
Just  as  quick  as  it  has  begun  to  shoot  a  root  down  one 
way  and  a  stem  up  the  other.  It  is  not  a  grown  plant, 
but  it  is  a  plant  just  as  truly  as  it  ever  will  be.  And 
when  is  a  man  a  Christian  ?  The  moment  he  accepts 
Christ  and  the  purposes  of  life  which  Christ  ordained, 
by  precept  and  example  ;  the  moment  he  says,  "  That 
is  the  charter  of  my  life.  I  hold  myself  bound  by 
those  laws."  The  instant  a  man  puts  the  honest  pur- 
poses of  the  Christian  forward,  he  has  begun  to  be 
a  Christian.  "  What !  without  any  transport  ? "  Yes, 
with  or  without.  "  Without  any  fruit  yet  ? "  Yes, 
with  or  without.  That  is  the  initial  point ;  —  the  point 
at  which  a  man  with  his  purpose  or  will  goes  over  to 
that  view  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  accepts  that  ideal  of  man- 
hood as  his  own,  and  then  begins  to  act  accordingly, 
he  has  started. 

VARIED   EXPERIENCES. 

Now,  in  the  development  of  this  purpose,  you  will 
find,  as  in  the  process  of  conviction,  a  wide  range  of 
variation  which  you  ought  not  to  desire  to  contract. 
You  ought  to  rejoice  that  the  God  who  made  ten  thou- 
sand forms  of  flowers,  and  who  differentiates  throughout 
the  physical  world,  also  makes  every  man  different  from 
all  others.  This  variety  constitutes  an  element  of  in- 
tense interest  and  profound  sympathy.  There  will  be 
many  persons  who  will  come  gliding  into  this  state  of 
mind  as  naturally  as  a  cloud  forms.  Of  all  the 


BRINGING  MEN   TO   CHRIST.  323 

things  that  take  place  in  nature,  there  is  nothing  so 
ethereal,  so  ineffable,  as  the  birth  of  a  cloud.  If  you 
have  spent  a  summer  in  a  mountain  region,  you  have 
had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  them  form  in  long  se- 
quence. Overhead  there  is  perfect  clarity,  deep  blue, 
the  air  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  when  you  first  look  there  is 
nothing  else ;  but  before  you  have  ceased  to  look,  within 
a  glance  of  the  eye,  there  is  a  slight  opacity,  a  haze ;  — 
you  look  again  and  it  is  a  cloud.  A  breath  brings  it, 
swiftly  and  silent.  And  there  are  some  souls  that  move 
almost  as  ethereally  as  that.  I  have  known  persons 
who  came  into  the  Christian  life  with  as  little  friction, 
as  little  ado,  as  little  conspicuity,  and  yet  with  as  much 
certainty,  as  a  cloud  forms  in  the  pure  summer  moun- 
tain air.  Bless  God  for  such !  Praise  Mm,  thank  him ! 
Do  not  disturb  them.  If  they  love  Christ,  if  their 
hearts  gush  out  in  praise,  if  they  betake  themselves  to 
the  ways  of  Christian  life,  its  dispensations  its  bounty, 
its  magnanimity,  its  generosity,  its  truth,  its  self-gov- 
ernment, its  ardent  passion  of  life,  its  self-denial  in 
love, —  if  they  betake  themselves  to  these  moods  and 
life,  never  put  them  back  by  asking  "  In  what  way  did 
you  come  ?  What  was  your  experience  ? "  If  a  child 
brings  me  to-day  a  bunch  of  spring  beauties,  or  hepatica, 
or  that  sweetest  blossom  that  grows  in  the  breast  of 
humility  under  russet  leaves,  the  mayflower,  the  trailing 
arbutus,  I  will  ask  no  questions  where  they  grew.  The 
flower  itself  is  its  own  evidence  of  orthodoxy. 

There  are  many  that  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
by  this  attraction.  I  know  that  a  great  many  persons 
would  say  to  such  people,  "Was  there  a  very  great 
struggle  when  you  began  to  love  God?"  I  used  to 


324          LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

have  a  member  on  my  examining  committee  who  ques- 
tioned everybody  that  came  into  the  church  with  "  Do 
you  remember  any  time  when  you  hated  God  ? ''  "  No," 
said  a  sweet  young  maiden  ;  "  I  do  not  remember  a  time 
when  I  did  not  love  him."  That  would  not  do ;  that 
was  a  fatal  defect,  in  his  judgment.  Why,  I  rejoiced  in 
it !  I  said  to  her,  "  Hold  on,  my  child,  hold  on ;  don't 
let  him  dash  you.  You  are  right,  and  he  is  wrong."  It 
is  good  sometimes  to  make  deacons  ashamed  before 
young  people.  When  the  image  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  comes  before  such  a  soul,  its  nature  goes  right 
over  towards  him.  Who  shall  dare  stand  between  such 
a  soul  and  the  Master  who  has  found  it  ? 

I  have  presented  this  picture  to  many  persons,  who 
would  clearly  understand  the  conditions  of  salvation, 
as  they  are  called,  and  yet  who  had  a  vague  impres- 
sion that  something  else  had  got  to  come.  They  had 
had  none  of  those  Dantean  purgatorial  experiences ; 
they  did  n't  know  that  they  might  believe  and  call  that 
being  Christians ;  and  so  they  waited.  I  have  often 
found  that,  by  bringing  the  amplitude  and  impetuosity 
of  my  own  hope  to  bear  upon  them,  I  could  give  them 
great  help.  Why,  I  have  for  a  man,  in  such  times  as 
that,  labor-pain.  And  when  I  find  a  man  that  has  got 
the'  right  condition  and  the  right  feeling,  I  can  put  him 
in,  if  he  won't  go  in  otherwise.  I  can  put  him  in  with 
an  afflatus  of  hope,  with  an  exulting  push  of  my  soul 
on  his  soul,  and  say  to  him,  "  0  gazer  I  0  lingering 
child !  you  are  right,  you  are  right ;  that  is  your  Christ. 
Take  him,  take  him,  you  are  near  him,  his  hand  is  on 
you."  And  with  my  certainty  and  the  excitement  of 
my  soul  and  its  sympathy  with  his,  before  he  knows  it 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  325 

he  is  right  over  on  the  other  side  of  the  rise.  "Well,  I 
may  not  men  be  brought  over  by  hope  ?  I  say  that ) 
when  you  bring  before  men  the  vision  of  Christ,  not! 
crucified,  but  the  Christ  that  lives  again  and  lives  for- 
ever, compared  with  whose  bright  face  the  sun  itself  is 
darkness,  —  bring  that  conception  of  the  living  God  of 
love  before  a  man,  and  I  do  not  care  by  what  door  of 
his  faculties  he  may  come  out  to  him.  He  may  come 
by  fear ;  it  is  the  worst  one.  He  may  come  by  con- 
science ;  it  is  good  enough.  0,  but  let  him  come  by 
love,  by  sweet  sympathy  •  it  is  better  than  all.  It  is 
better  that  the  child  that  has  gone  away  should  come 
home  for  the  most  selfish  reasons,  than  that  he  should 
not  come  at  all ;  yet  if  he  come  by  filial  sorrow  and 
noble  motives  it  is  the  best  way  to  come.  But  any 
way,  so  that  he  comes  !  In  general,  however,  I  think  it 
may  be  said  that  more  persons  may  be  won  by  the  love 
of  Christ,  by  the  presentation  of  these  brighter  views 
of  his  character  and  love,  than  by  any  other  means. 

Of  course  I  do  not  purpose,  in  this  brief  lecture,  to  go 
into  the  analysis  of  all  the  phenomena,  —  they  are 
endless,  —  nor  to  give  you  a  registration  of  the  classes, 
of  the  infinite  number  of  cases  that  will  occur.  It  is 
a  part  of  your  privilege  and  your  enjoyment  to  learn 
these  yourself,  in  your  own  ministry.  I  wish  only  to 
leave  an  impression  of  the  simplicity,  the  naturalness, 
the  ease,  with  which  one  may  make  the  transition 
from  the  natural  life,  in  which  the  lower  faculties  pre- 
dominate, to  the  spiritual  life,  in  which  the  higher  or 
religious  faculties  are  in  the  ascendant. 


326  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 


AFTER  CONVERSION. 

When  men  have  been  brought  to  this  state  of  conscious 
sinfulness  and  feel  their  need  of  a  change  of  life  within 
and  without,  when  they  have  had  the  part  which  they 
are  to  choose  clearly  presented  before  them,  and  made 
the  choice,  what  will  be  the  result  ?  Well,  that  will 
depend  a  great  deal  upon  circumstances,  too.  I  have 
heard  men  say  that  they  went  to  bed  unconscious  of 
loving  God,  and  woke  up  in  the  morning  in  a  transport. 
They  think  they  were  converted  in  their  sleep.  I  don't 
think  so,  —  though  I  have  seen  men  in  church  who,  if 
they  ever  were  converted,  would  have  to  undergo  the 
process  while  asleep.  But  I  have  no  question  whatever 
that  a  change  often  takes  place  unconsciously  in  men, 
when  the  mental  processes  have  been  so  graded,  the  in- 
struction and  the  approaches  have  been  so  gradual,  that 
they  could  not  tell  when  it  came.  When  you  go  by  the 
Pacific  Eailroad  to  California,  you  do  not  know  where 
the  maximum  grade  is.  You  go  up  over  the  Kocky 
Mountains  with  such  a  gentle  slope,  all  the  time  rising, 
rising,  rising,  that  when  you  stop  at  last,  and  they  tell 
you  that  you  are  on  the  summit  level,  you  are  amazed ; 
you  thought  that  the  summit  level  was  such  that  you 
would  be  plunged  up  and  plunged  down  in  getting  there ; 
but  it  was  like  going  through  a  meadow,  the  rise  was 
so  gradual.  I  have  seen  many  men  with  such  experi- 
ences as  that  in  regard  to  their  Christian  growth.  And 
the  question  should  be,  simply,  Do  they  live  right  ? 
have  they  the  right  dispositions  ?  are  they  moving  in 
spiritual  directions  ?  If  they  are,  no  matter  how  grad- 
ually they  passed  from  death  to  life.  When  the  spark 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  327 

is  first  struck,  it  does  not  glow ;  you  shield  it  darkling, 
you  feed  it,  you  have  smoke  before  flame,  and  then  by 
and  by  a  little  light ;  but  if  you  still  feed  it,  the  light 
shines  brighter  and  brighter  unto  the  perfect  day.  So  a 
person  may  be  soundly  converted  and  really  a  Christian, 
and  may  have  passed  over  into  the  promised  land  of 
faith  and  hope,  though  he  has  no  milestone  to  tell  him 
when  he  passes  the  line,  and  there  are  no  phenomena 
to  flame  it  in  heaven  or  to  proclaim  it  on  the  earth. 

Then  there  are  persons  who  have  the  most  distinct 
and  clear  perceptions  of  change.  Mr.  Eiggs,  who  was 
in  college  when  I  was,  and  who  afterwards  went  abroad 
as  a  missionary,  was  one  morning  sitting  in  his  room 
conversing  on  the  subject  of  religion  with  a  friend,  who 
told  him  what  he  thought  was  necessary  in  order  to 
become  a  Christian.  "  Is  that  it  ? "  asked  young  Eiggs. 
"  Yes,  that  is  it."  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  I  am  going  to  live 
that  life."  And  without  any  conviction  of  sin  he  made 
a  purely  intellectual  decision,  and  it  was  followed  at 
once  by  his  affections  and  his  actual  honest  life.  He 
he  became  not  only  a  Christian  man,  but  an  eminent 
Christian  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  tempestuous  natures, 
natures  that  break  out  into  intense  emotion.  I  do  not 
think  these  dramatic  conversions  are  necessary,  but  still, 
if  a  man's  mind  works  in  such  a  way  that  when  he  first 
gains  a  clear  vision  of  God  and  embraces  him,  and  is  con- 
scious that  all  resistance  has  ceased,  and  that  he  is 
willing  to  abandon  all  evil  ways  and  enter  upon  all 
righteous  ways ;  when  he  feels  within  himself,  "  I  have 
passed  from  death  to  life," — if  there  is  a  transporting 
sense  of  joy  and  surprise,  I  stand  by  and  say  he  has 


328  LECTURES   ON"  PREACHING. 

a  right  to  his  individuality  and  his  own  experience.  All 
I  ask  is  that  he  shall  not  make  that  experience  a  despotic 
standard  for  his  quieter  brethren. 

There  was  an  old  Methodist  preacher  in  Virginia,  in 
earlier  times,  who  gave  his  experience,  in  which  —  as 
he  said  —  the  spirit  of  God  "walloped"  him,  and  he 
could  get  no  peace.  He  told  how  it  drove  him  out  of 
his  house,  away  from  his  business  and  into  the  fields ; 
how  he  "  wallowed  in  conviction,"  as  he  expressed  it. 
He  seems  to  have  been  a  great,  strong  nature ;  and  he 
finally  bowed  down  in  the  field  before  God,  he  said  — 
he  \vas  a  slaveholder  and  had  nine  negro  men,  —  and 
prayed,  "  Why,  Lord,  why  is  it  that  you  deal  so  with 
me  ?  Tell  me  what  is  in  the  way,  and  I  will  give  it 
up!"  "And,  brethren,"  said  he,  "I  saw  nine  black 
niggers  standing  right  up  before  me,  and  I  said,  '  Yes, 
Lord,  I  will  give  them  up.'  And  the  next  moment  I 
was  on  my  feet  hollering,  '  Hallelujah !  Hallelujah ! ' 
That  was  genuine.  I  think  there  are  a  great  many 
men  that  might  be  converted  in  that  way.  Men  who 
give  false  weights  and  measures,  who  are  doing  iniquity 
on  the  sly,  when  they  come  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
they  come  with  a  consciousness  that  they  are  bringing 
such  unworthy  things  !  When  you  go  to  see  one  whom 
you  love  and  who  desires  to  love  you,  what  care  it  in- 
spires within  you !  How  you  apparel  yourself  with  that 
which  is  sweetest  and  best !  How  you  take  from  yourself 
everything  that  would  be  disagreeable  !  How  you  seek 
beauty,  and  wear  it  in  flowers !  How  you  come  into  the 
presence  of  those  you  love,  honoring  them  by  every- 
thing that  you  think  would  be  sweet  and  pleasant  to 
them !  And  when  one  goes  before  the  Lord  Jesus 


BRINGING  MEN  TO   CHRIST.  329 

Christ  to  offer  himself  up  in  love,  a  loving  sacrifice, 
shall  he  hide  deceits?  Shall  he  hide  gross  appetites 
and  lusts  ?  Nay,  verily ;  when  a  man  has  come  to  the 
time  of  decision,  let  him  take  the  worst  things  about 
himself,  the  "  nine  black  niggers  "  before  him  ;  and  then 
let  him  place  Christ  right  over  them,  ascendant,  trium- 
phant. Let  him  put  down  his  sins,  —  let  them  go 
down  in  the  act  of  consecration.  If  there  is  this 
transport  of  emotion,  that  is  his  way ;  he  has  just  as 
much  right  to  it  as  the  English  have  to  speak  English, 
the  French  to  speak  Erench.  But  the  test  of  his  con- 
version from  the  love  of  sin  to  the  desire  for  holiness  is 
to  be  found,  not  in  the  manner  of  its  happening  but  in 
the  life  that  follows  it.  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them." 

I  draw  my  lectures  to  a  close  this  evening.  I  never 
part  for  a  whole  year's  separation  from  any  one  without 
the  consciousness  that  it  may  be  the  last  parting.  It  is 
not  sorrow  that  this  inspires  in  me,  though  it  is  sad- 
ness ;  but  it  is  a  sweet  sadness,  a  tempered  sadness. 
Young  gentlemen,  many  of  you  may  cut  short  your 
labors  on  earth  before  the  time  comes  round  again  for 
the  resumption  of  this  course  of  lectures,  should  they 
ever  be  resumed.  Some  of  you  may  pass  to  a  higher 
ministry  before  that  time.  Many  of  you  will  pass  out 
into  the  field  and  begin  your  earthly  ministration.  I 
can  ask  for  you  in  either  case  nothing  so  good  as  this,  — 
a  sense  of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  to  you ;  —  not  how 
much  you  love  him,  but  the  sense  of  the  overflowing 
affluence  of  the  love  of  Christ  for  you  !  And  I  can  bear 
you  this  witness,  that  not  all  friendship,  not  praise,  not 


330          LECTUEES  ON  PREACHING. 

success  in  life,  not  the  joy  which  I  experience  in  com- 
munion with  nature,  not  the  rapturous  and  exquisite 
sensations  in  the  presence  of  things  beautiful,  nothing 
in  earth,  has  ever  been  to  me  such  strength,  such  con- 
stant joy,  as  the  sense  that  Christ  loved  me  while  I 
was  a  sinner,  and  as  I  am  a  sinner,  and  because  I  am  a 
sinner ;  that,  because  I  am  sick,  he  is  my  physician ; 
and  because  I  am  weak,  he  is  my  captain;  and  because 
I  am  imperfect,  he  is  my  "  all  and  in  all."  And,  there- 
fore, as  the  consummation  of  every  earthly  ambition 
and  as  the  assurance  of  everything  that  is  richest  and 
best,  I  can  only  wish  you  the  consciousness  of  a  living 
Saviour ;  a  high-priest,  merciful,  patient,  long-suffering ; 
a  present  help  in  time  of  trouble.  Christ  loves  you 
with  overwhelming  love ;  may  you  know  it  and  rejoice 
in  it!- 


Cambridge  :  Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


September,  1873. 


THE  CIRCUIT  RIDER. 

A  NOVEL. 
BY  EDWARD  EGGLESTON. 

I  vol.     I2mo.  \In  Preparation. 

Mr.  Eggleston  is  making  this  his  best  novel ;  and  is  giving  it  his 
most  careful  attention.  Its  own  superior  merits  as  well  as  his  bril- 
liant reputation  will  command  for  this,  his  latest  work,  an  immediate 
popularity. 

A    GOOD    MATCH. 

A  NOVEL. 
BY  AMELIA  PERRIER,  Author  of  "  Mea  Culpa." 

I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $i  50. 
A  clever  and  amusing  Novel,  agreeably  written,  racy,  and  lively. 


BRAVE   HEARTS. 

A  NOVEL. 

BY    ROBERTSON    GRAY. 
I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  §i  50. 

A  characteristic  American  novel  tinder  the  nom  de  plume  of  a 
favorite  story-writer,  heretofore  known  by  the  brilliancy,  wit,  pathos, 
humor,  and  readableness  of  the  shorter  tales  published  under  his 
own  name. 


SILVER    AND    GOLD. 

AN    ACCOUNT    OF    THE    MINING    AND     METALLURGICAL    INDUSTRY  OF  THE    UNITED 
STATES,   WITH  REFERENCE  CHIEFLY  TO  THE  PRECIOUS  METALS. 

BY  ROSSITER  W.  RAYMOND. 

Commissioner  of  Mining  Statistics  ;  President  of  the  American  In- 
stitute of  Mining  Engineers  ;  Editor  of  the  Engineering  and 
Mining  Journal ;  Author  of  "  Mines  of  the  West," 
"American  Mines  and  Mining,"  "Mines, 
Mills,  and  Furnaces,"  etc.,  etc. 
i  vol.     8vo.     Cloth,  $3  50. 

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WINNING    SOULS. 

^SKETCHES  AND  INCIDENTS  DURING  FOR  f  Y  YEARS  OF  PASTORAL  WORK. 

BY  REV.  S.  B.  HALLIDAY. 
I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $i. 

The  author  of  this  volume  for  some  time  past  has  been,  and  now 
is,  engaged  as  assistant  in  the  pastoral  labors  of  Plymouth  Church, 
Brooklyn  (Rev.  H.  W.  Beecher's),  where,  in  visiting  among  the  sick, 
the  poor,  and  the  afflicted  of  that  large  parish,  and  in  attending  to 
many  of  the  social  and  business  details  of  me  church,  he  is  continu- 
ally encountering  new  and  interesting  phases  of  heart-life  struggling 
to  turn  from  sin  and  sorrow  toward  godliness  and  peace.  These 
simple  records  of  scenes  among  his  earlier  labors  will  possess  a  pecu- 
liar interest  to  all  who  love  such  work  for  their  fellows. 


NORWOOD : 
Or,  Village  Life  in  New  England. 

A  NOVEL. 

BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 
Uniform  Edition  of  the  Author's  Works. 

I  vol.     I2mo.  [/«  Press. 

This  is  Mr.  Beecher's  only  novel,  and  it  affords  a  most  remarkable 
illustration  of  his  versatility.  Full  of  exquisite  descriptions  of 
scenery  and  delineations  of  social  and  domestic  life,  exceedingly 
graphic  and  trustworthy  in  detail,  and  abounding  in  passages  of 
genial  humor  and  kindly  wisdom,  it  is  altogether  one  of  the  most 
enjoyable  novels  ever  published.  It  is  fragrant  with  the  genuine 
raciness  of  the  New  England  soil. 


PLEASANT    TALK    ABOUT    FRUITS, 
FLOWERS,    AND    FARMING. 

NEW  EDITION,   WITH  MUCH  ADDITIONAL  MATTER. 

BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Uniform  Edition  of  the  Author's  Works. 

I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $i  75. 

This  volume,  when  it  was  first  given  to  the  public  some  years  ago, 
was  most  favorably  received,  both  in  this  country  and  in  England. 
The  present  edition  contains  many  recent  additions  to  the  original 
book,  dealing  with  both  the  poetical  and  the  practical  side  of  garden- 
ing and  farming,  the  whole  making  a  volume  of  rare  interest  and 
value. 

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Works  Published  by  f.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  3 

YALE  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

FIRST  SERIES. 

BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 
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I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $i  25. 

Delivered  before  the  classes  of  theology  and  the  faculty  of- the 
Divinity  School  of  Yale  College.  This  series  treats  of  the  personal 
elements  which  bear  an  important  relation  to  preaching.  The  Lec- 
tures are  rich  in  suggestion,  not  only  to  the  minister,  but  to  the 
lawyer, — to  everybody  to  whom  the  study  of  human  nature  is  of  in- 
terest or  value.  As  an  expression  of  the  methods  by  which  this 
master-preacher  works  to  produce  such  resulss  as  have  crowned  his 
ministry,  their  usefulness  cannot  be  over-estimated. 


"What   a  charming,  what  a  'fruity' 
volume   is   this  last   venture   of   Henry 
Ward    Beecher!     The    'Yale    Lectures 
on  Preaching'  can  be  read  by  everybody, 
layman  or  clergyman,  with  delight.    We 
can  point  to  few  recent  novels  which  are 
more   entertaining  than  this    book."  — 
Boston  Globe, 

"Vigorous,  eloquent,  and  practical." 
—Philadelphia  Age. 

"  We  know  of  no  dozen  treaties  on 
the  preacher's  work  which   contain  so 
much  of  sensible  and  valuable  instruc- 
tion as  is  compressed  into  this  little  vol- 
ume." —  N.  Y.  Independent. 

YALE  LECTURES  ON  PREACHING. 

SECOND  SERIES. 
BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Uniform  Edition  of  the  Author's  Works. 

I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $i  50. 

The  second  course  consists  of  eleven  lectures  delivered  at  Yale 
College  during  the  winter  of  1873.  In  this  course  Mr.  Beecher  con- 
siders the  social  and  religious  machinery  of  the  church  as  related  to 
preaching. 

STAR  PAPERS. 

NEW  EDITION,   WITH   MANY   ADDITIONAL  PAPERS. 

BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Uniform  Edition  of  the  Author's  Works. 

I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $1   75. 

These  experiences  of  Art  and  Nature  are  perhaps  the  most  widely 
known  of  Mr.  Beecher's  miscellaneous  writings.  The  original  edi- 
tion, issued  many  years  ago,  met  with  a  most  gratifying  reception,  and, 
although  it  has  been  out  of  print  for  some  years,  has  been  frequently 
inquired  for.  It  is  now  reissued  with  fresh  and  charming  additions. 


"  We  have  nothing  in  the  way  of  de- 
scriptive writing,  not  even  the  best 
sketches  of  Washington  Irving,  that 
exceeds  in  richness  of  imagery  and  per- 
spicuity of  statement  these  '  Star  Pa- 
pers.' "—Methodist  Home  Journal. 


"  A  book  to  be  read  and  re-read,  and 
always  with  a  fresh  sense  of  enjoyment." 
-Portland  Press. 

"So  full  of  rural  life,  so  sparkling 
with  cheerfulness,  so  holy  in  their  ten- 
derness. and  so  brave  in  nobility  of 
thought."—  Liberal  Christian. 


27  Park  Place,  and  24  &  26  Murray  Street,  New  York. 


Works  Published  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co. 


LECTURES    TO    YOUNG    MEN 

ON    VARIOUS    IMPORTANT    SUBJECTS. 

NEW   EDITION,   WITH   ADDITIONAL   LECTURES. 

BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Uniform  Edition  of  the  Author's  Works. 


I  vol.     I2mo.     Cloth, 


50. 


This  was  Mr.  Beecher's  first  book,  and  is  known  all  over  the 
world.  The  present  edition  is  enriched  by  the  addition  of  several 
new  lectures,  and  some  reminiscences  of  the  origin  of  the  book  by 
Mr.  Beecher.  The  book  should  have  a  place  in  every  family.  It 
can  scarcely  fail  to  interest  every  intelligent  reader,  nor  to  benefit 
every  young  man  who  reads  it. 


"  The  subjects  are  all  practical,  and 
presented  with  characteristic  impress- 
iveness." — Albany  Evening  Journal. 

"  Wise  and  elevating  in  tone,  pervaded 
by  earnestness,  and  well  fitted  for  its 
mission  to  improve  and  benefit  the  youth 
of  the  land.— Boston  Commonwealth. 

"  These  lectures  are  written  with  all 
the  vigor  of  style  and  beauty  of  lan- 


guage  which  characterize  everything 
from  the  pen  of  this  remarkable  man. 
They  are  a  series  of  fearless  disserta- 
tions upon  every-day  subjects,  conveyed 
with  a  power  of  eloquence  and  a  prac- 
tical illustration  so  unique  as  to  be 
oftentimes  startling  to  the  reader  ot 
ordinary  discourses  of  the  kind." — 
Philadelphia  Inquirer. 


MOTHERLY    TALKS 
WITH    YOUNG    HOUSEKEEPERS. 

BY  MRS.  H.  W.  BEECHER. 

WITH   CARBON-PHOTOGRAPHIC    PORTRAIT   OF   THE   AUTHOR. 
I  Vol.       I2mO.       $2. 

Mrs.  Beecher's  notion  of  woman's  sphere  is,  that,  whatever  ex- 
ceptional women  may  be  able  to  accomplish  by  reason  of  peculiar 
circumstances  and  talents,  the  place  of  labor  and  achievement  for 
most  women,  and  for  all  married  women  and  mothers,  is  Home. 

This  book,  composed  of  brief  and  pithy  articles  on  almost  every 
conceivable  point  of  duty,  is  an  admirable  monitor  for  young  wives, 
and  a  mine  of  good  sense  and  information  for  growing  maidens. 


11  An  admirable  corrective  to  ignorance 
in  the  household."—^.  Y.  Tribune. 
"  A    useful     and    entertaining    work, 
crammed   with  friendly  and  admirable 
monitions    and    instruction    for    young 
housekeepers."  —  Philadelphia    Even- 
ing Herald. 
"  This  book  is  exactly  what  its  title 
sets  forth  —  a  kind  and  motherly  way  of 
helping   the   young  and    inexperienced 

make     agreeable,     well-regulated,    and 
happy  homes."  —  Boston  Globe. 

"What  she  has  to   say  she  says  so 
well,  with  such  good  sense,  ripe  judg- 
ment,  and   such    a    mother-warmth   of 
heart,  that  she  cannot  fail  to  help  the 
class   for  whom  she  writes,  and  guid<r 
them   into  good  and    useful    paths."  — 
Presbyterian. 

Park  Place,  and  24  6°  26  Murray  Street,  New  York. 


Works  Published  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co. 


NEW    LIFE    IN    NEW    LANDS. 

NOTES  OF  TRAVEL  ACROSS  THE  AMERICAN  CONTINENT,  FROM 
CHICAGO  TO  THE  PACIFIC  AND  BACK. 

BY  GRACE  GREENWOOD. 

I  vol.     I2mo.     $2. 

This  is  a  gathered  series  of  letters,  racy,  brilliant,  piquant ;  full  of 
keen  observation  and  pungent  statement  of  facts,  picturesque  in  de- 
lineation of  scenes  on  the  plains,  in  the  mountains,  and  along  the 
sea. 


"  Among  the  best  of  the  author's 
productions,  and  every  way  delightful." 
—Boston  Post. 

"  The  late  William  H.  Seward  char- 
acterized her  account  of  Mormons  and 
Mormonism  as  the  most  graphic  and 
trustworthy  he  had  ever  read.  — Meth- 
odist Home  Journal, 


"  Grace  always  finds  lots  of  things  no 
one  else  would  see  ;  and  she  has  a  happy 
knack  of  picking  up  the  mountains  and 
cities  and  big  tress,  and  tossing  them 
across  the  continent  right  before  the 
reader's  eyes.  It's  very  convenient." — 
Buffalo  Express. 


MY    WIFE    AND    I: 

OR,    HARRY    HENDERSON'S    HISTORY. 

A  NOVEL. 
BY  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE. 

Illustrated.  I  vol.  I2mo.  Cloth,  $i  75. 

This  charming  novel  is,  in  some  respects,  Mrs.  Stowe's  most 
thoughtful  and  complete  book.  It  is  eminently  a  book  for  the  times, 
giving  the  author's  individual  ideas  about  the  much-vexed  Woman 
Question,  including  marriage,  divorce,  suffrage,  legislation,  and  all 
the  rights  claimed  by  the  clamorous. 


"  A  capital  story,  in  which  fashionable 
follies  are  shown  up,  fast  young  ladies 
weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  want- 
ing, and  the  value  of  true  worth  ex- 
hibited."—Portland  A  rgus. 


"Always  bright,  piquant,  and  enter- 
taining, with  an  occasional  touch  of 
tenderness,  strong  because  subtle}  keen 
in  sarcasm,  full  of  womanly  logic  di- 
rected against  unwomanly  tendencies. 
— Boston  Journal. 


THE    OVERTURE    OF    ANGELS. 

A  SERIES  OF  PICTURES  OF  THE  ANGELIC  APPEARANCES  ATTENDING 
THE  NATIVITY  OF  OUR  LORD.    A  CHAPTER  FROM 

THE  "LIFE  OF  CHRIST." 
BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

Illustrated.     I  vol.     I2mo.     $2. 

A  beautiful  and  characteristically  interesting  treatment  of  all  the 
events  recorded  in  the  Gospels  as  occurring  about  the  time  of  the 
Nativity.  Full  of  poetic  imagery,  beauty  of  sentiment,  and  vivid 
pictures  of  the  life  of  the  Orient  in  that  day. 


fulness  to  the  spirit  of  the  Biblical  record 
with  which  the  narrative  is  treated  are 
characteristic  of  its    author,    and    will 

its  elegance  of  form  will  giv';  it  an  addi- 
tional  attraction."  —  Worceiter  (Mass. 
Spy. 
"  A  perfect  fragment."—  JV.  Y.  World. 

27  Park  Place,  and  24  6°  26  Murray  Street^  Nciu  York. 


Works  Published  by  J.  B.  Ford  6"  Co. 


BEECHER'S    SERMONS. 

FROM  PHONOGRAPHIC  REPORTS  BY  T.  J.  ELLINWOOD,  FOR  FIFTEEN 
YEARS  MR.  BEECHER'S  SPECIAL  REPORTER.    UNIFORMLY 
BOUND  IN  DARK  BROWN  ENGLISH  CLOTH.    EACH 
VOLUME  CONTAINS  TWENTY-SIX  SER- 
MONS,  AND   THE   PRAYERS   BE- 
FORE  THE   SERMONS. 

Eight  vols.     8vo.     Cloth,  $2  50  each. 

Each  succeeding  volume  will  contain  also,  six  months'  sermons  (from 
450  to  500  pp.),  issued  in  uniform  style.  The  First  Series  has  an  ex- 
cellent steel  portrait  of  Mr.  Beecher ;  the  Second  Series,  a  fine  interior 
view  of  Plymouth  Church.  The  other  volumes  are  not  illustrated. 


"  These  corrected  sermons  of  perhaps 
the  greatest  of  living  preachers  —  a  man 
whose  heart  is  as  warm  and  catholic  as 
his  abilities  are  great,  and  whose  ser- 
mons   combine    fidelity  and    scriptural 
truth,  great  power,  glorious  imagination, 
fervid  rhetoric,  and  vigorous  reasoning, 
with  intense  human  sympathy  and  robust 
common-sense."  —  British     Quarterly 
Re-view. 

"  There  is  not  a  discourse  in  all  this 
large  collection  that  does  not  hold  pas- 
sages of  great  suggestiveness  and  power 
for  the  most  ordinary,  unsympathizing 
reader  —  illustrations  of  great  beauty  and 
point,  eloquent  invitations  to  better  life, 
touching  appeals  to  nobler  purposes  and 
more    generous     action."—  Springfield 
Republican. 

MATERNITY  : 

A  POPULAR  TREATISE  FOR  WIVES  AND  MOTHERS. 

BY  T.  S.  VERDI,  A.  M.,  M.  D. 

Fifth  Edition. 
I  vol.     izmo.     $2  25. 

This  book  has  arisen  from  a  want  felt  in  the  author's  own  practice, 
as  a  monitor  to  young  wives,  a  guide  to  young  mothers,  and  an  as- 
sistant to  the  family  physician.  It  deals  skillfully,  sensibly,  and  deli- 
cately with  the  perplexities  of  married  life,  giving  information  which 
women  must  have,  either  in  conversation  with  physicians  or  from 
such  a  source  as  this.  Plain  and  intelligible,  but  without  offence  to 
the  most  fastidious  taste,  the  style  of  this  book  must  commend  it  to 
careful  perusal.  It  treats  of  the  needs,  dangers,  and  alleviations  of 
the  holy  duties  of  maternity,  and  gives  extended,  detailed  instruc- 
tions for  the  care  and  medical  treatment  of  infants  and  children 
throughout  all  the  perils  of  early  life. 


"  The  author  deserves  great  credit  for 
his  labor,  and  the  book  merits  an  ex- 
tensive circulation."—  U.  S.  Medical  and 
Surgical  Journal  {Chicago). 

"We  hail  the  appearance  of  this  work 
with  true  pleasure.  It  is  dictated  by  a 
pure  and  liberal  spirit,  and  will  be  a  real 
boon  to  many  a  young  mother."  —  Amer- 
ican Medical  Observer  (Detroit). 


"  There  are  few  intelligent  mothers 
who  will  not  be  benefitted  by  reading 
and  keeping  by  them  for  frequent  coun- 
sel a  volume  so  rich  in  valuable  sug- 
gestions. With  its  tables,  prescriptions, 
and  indexes  at  the  end,  this  book  ought 
to  do  much  good." — Hearth  and  Home. 


27  Park  Place,  and  24  6°  26  Murray  Street,  New  York. 


Works  Published  by  /.  B.  Ford  &  Co.  7 

THE  CHILDREN'S  WEEK: 

SEVEN  STORIES   FOR  SEVEN  DAYS. 

BY  R.  W.  RAYMOND. 
ILLUSTRATED  BY  H.  L.  STEPHENS  AND  Miss  M.  L.  HALLOCK. 

I  vol.     i6mo.     Cloth,  $i  25. 

Seven  cheery  stories  with  a  flavor  of  the  holidays  about  them. 
Mr.  Raymond's  conceptions  are  ingenious,  and  while  the  glimpses  of 
fairy-land  and  its  wonders  will  open  the  eyes  of  the  little  folk,  the 
book  possesses  many  attractions  for  older  persons  in  its  simple,  artis- 
tic style,  and  the  quaint  ideas  in  which  it  revels. 


"  The  book  is  bright  enough  to  please 
any  people  of  culture,  and  yet  so  simple 
that  children  will  welcome  it  with  glee." 
—Cleveland  Plaindealer. 

Mr.  Raymond's  tales  have  won  great 
popularity  by  their  wit,  delicate  fancy, 

and,  withal,  admirable  good  sense.   The 
illustrations—  all  new  and  made  for  the 
book  —  are  particularly  apt  and  pleasing, 
showing  forth  the  comical  element  of  the 
book  and  its  pure  and  beautiful  senti- 
ment."— Buffalo  (N.  K)  Commercial 
Advertiser. 

OUR  SEVEN  CHURCHES: 

EIGHT  LECTURES. 

BY  THOMAS  K.  BEECHER. 
I  vol.     i6mo.     Paper,  50  cents  ;   Cloth,  $1. 

A  most  valuable  exponent  of  the  doctrines  of  the  leading  religious 
denominations,  and  a  striking  exhibition  of  the  author's  magnanimity 
and  breadth  of  loving  sympathy. 


"  The  sermons  are  written  in  a  style 
at  once  brilliant,  epigrammatic,  and 
readable."—  Utica  Herald. 

"  This  little  book  has  created  con- 
siderable discussion  amon 


als,  and 


"by  all."—  Phila.  Ledger. 


sion  among  the  religious 
ill  be  read  with  interest 


"  There  is  hardly  a  page  which  does 
not  offer  a  fresh  thought,  a  genial  touch 
of  humor,  or  a  suggestion  at  which  the 
reader's  heart  leaps  up  with  grateful 
surprise  that  a  minister  belonging  to  a 
sect  can  think  and  speak  so  generously 
and  nobly." — Milwaukee  Sentinel. 


HISTORY  of  the  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK. 

FROM     THE     DATE     OF     THE     DISCOVERY     AND      SETTLEMENTS     ON 

MANHATTAN  ISLAND  TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME.      A  TEXT-BOOK 

FOR  HIGH   SCHOOLS,   ACADEMIES,  AND  COLLEGES. 

BY  S.  S.  RANDALL, 

Superintendent  of  Public  Education  in  New  York  City. 
I  vol.     I2mo.     Illustrated.     Cloth,  $i  75. 

Officially  adopted  by  the  Boards  of  Education  in  the  cities  of 
New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  Jersey  City,  for  use  in  the  Public  Schools  ; 
and  in  Private  Schools  throughout  the  State. 

27  Park  Place,  and  24  6°  26  Murray  Street,  New  York. 


8  Works  Published  by  J.  B  Ford  &  Co. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE 

AS  APPLIED     TO  THE  DUTIES  AND   PLEASURES   OF  HOME. 

BY   CATHARINE   E.   BEECHER  and  HARRIET    BEECHER  STOWE 

I  vol.     I2mo.     Profusely  Illustrated.     Cloth,  $2. 

Prepared  with  a  view  to  assist  in  training  young  women  for  the 
distinctive  duties  which  inevitably  come  upon  them  in  household  life, 
this  volume  has  been  made  with  especial  reference  to  the  duties, 
cares,  and  pleasures  of  the  family,  as  being  the  place  where,  whatever 
the  political  developments  of  the  future,  woman,  from  her  nature  of 
body  and  of  spirit,  will  find  her  most  engrossing  occupation.  It  is 
full  of  interest  for  all  intelligent  girls  and  young  women. 

The  work  has  been  heartily  indorsed  and  adopted  by  the  directors 
of  many  of  the  leading  Colleges  and  Seminaries  for  young  women 
as  a  text-book,  both  for  study  and  reading. 


MINES,  MILLS,  AND  FURNACES 
of  the  Precious  Metals  of  the  United  States. 


BEING    A    COMPLETE    EXPOSITION    OF   THE    GENERAL    METHODS    EM- 
PLOYED IN  THE  GREAT  MINING  INDUSTRIES  OF  AMERICA. 

BY    ROSSITER    W.    RAYMOND,    PH.    D., 
U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Mining  Statistics. 
I  vol.     8vo.      With  Plates.     Cloth,  $3  50. 

This  is  a  very  particular  account  of  the  condition  of  the  mining 
interests,  and  the  processes  and  mechanical  appliances  which  are 
applicable  to  them,  in  California,  Nevada,  Oregon,  Idaho,  Montana, 
Utah,  Arizona,  Wyoming,  Colorado,  and  New  Mexico.  It  is  the  re- 
port of  the  Commissioner  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
embodies  all  the  information  which  official  investigation  and  contri- 
butions from  experts  and  residents  of  those  regions  can  afford. 


"  The  author  is  thorough  in  his  sub- 
ject, and  has  already  published  a  work 
on  our  mines  which  commanded  uni- 
versal approval  by  its  clearness  of  state- 
ment and  breadth  of  views." — Albany 

^ffis  scientific  ability,  his  practical 


knowledge  of  mines  and  mining,  his  un- 
erring judgment,  and,  finally,  the  en- 
thusiasm with  which  he  enters  upon  his 
work,  all  combine  to  fit  him  for  his  po- 
sition, and  none  could  bring  it  to  a 
greater  degree  of  uprightness  and  fair- 
ness."— Denver  News. 


13T  Any  of  the  above  books  will  be  sent  to  any  address,  post-paid, 
upon  receipt  of  the  price  by  the  Publishers. 


27  Park  Place,  and  24  6°  26  Murray  Street,  New  York. 


Works  Published  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co. 


ption  fjutduaiiotts, 


THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS,  THE  CHRIST. 

BY  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

PROFUSELY  ILLUSTRATED,   FROM    DESIGNS  AFTER  NATURE,   BY    A.    L. 

RAWSON,  DRAWN  ON   WOOD   BY  HARRY  FENN,   AND   ENGRAVED  BY 

THE  BROTHERS  LINTON  ;  WITH   NUMEROUS  MAPS  ;  AND   WITH  A 

STEEL  PLATE    FRONTISPIECE,    "HEAD    OF   CHRIST,"  COPIED 

FROM  DA  VINCI'S"  LAST  SUPPER,"  BY  W.  E.   MARSHALL. 

PART  I. 

Popular  Edition,     i  vol.  8vo.     Cloth.  $3  50. 
Imperial  Edition,     i  vol.     410.     Cloth,  $7  50. 

It  is  rare  to  find  in  any  one  book  so  many  attractions  as  this  pre- 
tends, in  the  grandeur  and  interest  of  the  subject,  and  the  peculiar 
fitness  of  the  author  for  its  treatment  both  by  native  genius  and  care- 
ful preparation.  Mr.  Beecher  has  put  his  whole  wonderful  self  into 
the  writing  of  this  book. 


"  The  book  which  the  masses  of  the 
Christian  world  have  been  waiting  for." 
—REV.  R.  S.  STORKS,  D.D. 
"  He  has  neither  thrown  off  his  ran- 
dom thoughts   nor  strung  together  his 
best  thoughts  ;  but  has  brought  all  his 

PART  II.    IN 

powers,  in  the  maturity  of  their  strength, 
in  the  richness  of  their  experience,  and 
the  largeness  of  their  development,  to 
produce  a  work  that  may  fitly  represent 
the   results  of  his    life/'—  REV.   J.    P. 
THOMPSON,  in  the  Independent. 

PREPARATION. 

A    LIBRARY    OF    POETRY    AND    SONG. 

BEING  CHOICE  SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  POETS. 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 

Illustrated  with  a  Portrait  on  Steel  of  MR.  BRYANT,  twenty-six  Auto- 
graphic Fac-similes  on  Wood  of  Celebrated  Poets,  and  six- 
teen full-page  Wood  Engravings  by  the  best  Artists 


Popular  Edition,     i  v 
Red-Line  Edition,     i 

This  book  has  been  prepared 
single  volume  the  largest  practical 
the  English  language,  making  it 
and  most  complete  general  collect] 
"  Good  taste  has  ruled  in  the  selec- 
tions, and  the   compiler  has  performed 
his  exceedingly  difficult  task  with  great 
success."  —  Chicago  Advance. 
"  Bryant's  Introduction  to  the  volume 
b  a  most  beautiful  and  comprehensive 
critical  essay  on  poets  and  poetry,  from 

ol.     8vo.     Cloth,  $5  co. 
vol.    8vo.    Cloth,  $7  50. 

with  the  aim  of  gathering  into  a 
compilation  of  the  best  poems  of 
as  nearly  as  possible  the  choicest 
on  published, 
the    days    of    'the    father   of  English 
poetry'  to  the  present  time."  —  Albany 
Evening  Journal. 

"  The  frontispiece  is  an  exquisite  like- 
ness    of    Mr.    Bryant."  —  New     York 
Evening  Post. 

27  Park  Place,  and  24  cr-5  26  Murray  Street,  New 


io  Works  Published  by  J.  B.  Ford  e^  Co. 


Subscription 


.  —  Continued. 


A  LIBRARY  OF  FAMOUS  FICTION. 

EMBRACING   THE   NINE    STANDARD    MASTERPIECES 
OF  IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE. 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE. 

Illustrated  with  thirty-four  Engravings  on  Wood. 

I  vol.     8vo.     Cloth,  $5. 

In  this  companion  book  to  the  "Library  of  Poetry  and  Song," 
the  famous  fictions  which  have  delighted  generations  are  offered  to 
the  public  in  an  elegant  and  convenient  form.  Mrs.  Stowe's  Intro- 
tion  is  an  admirable  feature  of  the  book. 


"  A  fitting  companion  for  the  popular 
'  Library  of  Poetry  and  Song.'  " — Lyons 
(N.  Y.)  Republican. 

"  All  ages  will  delight  in  it— some  be- 
cause it  presents  the  tales  which  charmed 
them  in  youth,  and  some  because  it  will 
open  to  them  the  rich  treasures  of 
wildest  fancy  and  most  limitless  im- 
agination."— Philadelphia  Age. 

"  Not  a  single  one  could  be  spared 


from  this  group." — Rahway  (N.  jf.)  Ad- 
vocate and  Times. 

"  The  book  is  a  gathering  of  intellec- 
tual treasures,  which  all  intelligent  fam- 
ilies must  desire  in  some  form  to  possess 
and  preserve ;  and  it  is  believed  that 
this  is  the  most  convenient,  interesting, 
and  elegant  form  in  which  they  have 
ever  been  presented  to  the  public."— 
Newburgh  (N.  Y.)  Journal. 


THE  NEW  HOUSEKEEPER'S  MANUAL. 

Embracing  "  The  American  Woman's  Home,"  and  "  The  Handy   Cook-Book." 

BY  CATHARINE  E.  BEECHER  and  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE. 

Profusely  Illustrated. 

I  vol.     8vo.     Cloth,  $3. 

An  eminently  practical  work,  the  result  of  long  domestic  experi- 
ence, and  thorough  study  of  domestic  needs.  It  deals  with  the 
foundation  principles  of  successful  housekeeping,  besides  being  full 
of  detailed  directions.  It  gives  the  scientific  and  the  common-sense 
reason  why,  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  operations  of  every- 
day life.  It  is  also  a  complete  Manual  of  Cookery. 


li  It  is  a  book  which,  to  country  read- 
ers at  least,  must  prove  invaluable."  — 
X.  Y.  Tribune. 
"  Young  married  women,  if  they  will 
but  read,  may  find  many  helps  to  pleas- 
ant and  comfortable  living  in  this  vol- 
ume."— New  York  Times. 
"  It  treats  practically  of  every  subject 
relating  to  domestic  life,  from  the  wo- 
man's stand-point."  —  Christian  Advo- 
cate (If.  Y.). 

"  The  reading  of  this  work  will  tend 
to  make  better  wives,  mothers,  and  com- 
panions."    Manford's   Monthly     (St. 
Louis. 

"  The    receipts,  counsels,    directions, 
hints,  and  experiences  meet  many  of  the 
little    perplexities    of  a    housekeeper's 
head."  Northern     Christian    Advo- 
cate. 

27  Park  Place,  and  24  6°  26  Murray  Street,  New  York. 


•'INATIVE  LI 

...TH  AN  INTROD' 

HARRIET  BEEC 
"  "mth  thirty-four  Et> 
Rvn.     Clot 


from  this  grou 
•vacate  and  T 

"The  boo 
tual  treasu--- 


I 


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SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Return  this  material  to  the  library 
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